It’s been a busy week here at Toolmonger. If you’ve been spending time in the shop — you should! — and you haven’t had a chance to keep up with Toolmonger this week, we suggest you start with these posts, which our readers helped to select:

How-To: Portable Solar Power
Maverick of Maverick Solar put the IkePak together to help his son after Hurricane Ike. He did not spend time doing extensive calculations, but just used what was readily available — he runs a solar energy company, so he probably has a few relevant things available — or easily obtained at the local WalMart.

Our Favorite Flashlights, No. 4: The 4D Maglite
Everyone needs a flashlight. Seriously. If it’s dark, you need light to see. And we see tons of flashlights here in the Toolmonger offices, lights in almost every flavor ranging from candy coated (gimmicky) to chicken (simple and useful for everything). Over the last year or so we’ve discovered a few favorites and thought we’d share. Here’s our fourth favorite: the four-cell Maglite.

Stanley Acquiring Black & Decker
Those of you who happened to catch the Washington Business Journal a few days ago probably did the same spit-take we did: “Power tool maker Black & Decker Corp. will be acquired by hand tool maker Stanley Works in an all-stock merger valued at $4.5 billion.”

Bosch GPL5 5-Point Self-Leveling Alignment Laser
Following the more-is-better philosophy, the Bosch GPL5 uses five beams to project plumb, level, and square points. It also self-levels (up to 5°). Available for around $200, the 1 lb. unit is 4.125″ × 3.125″ × 1.625″, and can be secured using its 1/4-40 or 5/8-11 threaded mounts, or via straps or magnets with its multipurpose attachment.

Projects: Rebirth Of A Dresser
This old dresser has been handed down through two generations of my family before I had it. It’s close to 50 years old and has been reworked more than once. It has no particular value save its clothes-holding properties. It has been in my bedroom for close to 30 years and it’s time for a change – preferably to something a little less Sgt. Pepper.

Help us choose next week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well. While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of the article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once. You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference. We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

The dresser rebuild is finally done. The finish work always feels like it takes forever but the outcome is normally worth the trouble. In this case almost anything would have looked better than what I started with.

I opted for Red Mahogany Danish oil for the stain and achieved the color I was looking for with one good coat and a light touch-up coat. A few days after the first coat went on it was time to start with the poly. I applied three coats of clear gloss poly to soften the color up a little and pop the grain. It produced a nice, soft shine and a good protective coat the piece never had in its painted days.

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Cooper Lighting’s Might-D-Light (a.k.a. model LED130) is an 80-LED rechargeable worklight. It comes with both AC and DC chargers, folds for easy storage, and, for hands-free use, has built-in neodymium magnets and a nylon swivel hook. Fully charged, its NiMH batteries should last two hours. As you can see in the top picture above, it also has reflective strips on the back. You can pick one up for around $39.

Might-D-Light [Manufacturer's Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Midway has a whopping 2% off of list price on the Dem Bart starter checkering kits, $44.99. That’s the best discount we’ve found! I’m listing it anyway as a caveat: these checkering tools are reasonably priced at retail. I made the mistake of thinking I was getting a good buy at the flea market last week, buying a single tool for $10.00. Turns out I paid close to retail! I couldn’t believe that a specialty tool was so cheap.

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The latest issue of Milwaukee’s Heavy Duty News alerted us to their upcoming LED replacement bulb.   Not only will this bulb upgrade your M12, M18, and V28 lights to LED, it should be able to upgrade most other flashlights that use similar sized bulbs running on 9.6V to 28V.

Milwaukee claims the bulb will give you 3X the run time and last 50,000 hours over the standard bulbs.  Being solid state it, has the added bonus that if your flash light can survive a fall, the bulb should too.

No wording on the price yet or when the bulbs will be available.

LED Upgrade 49-81-0090 [Milwaukee]

You may not see news like this on Reuters or CNN, but we love reading about the latest tool releases — like these new ratchets from Stanley Proto. In 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ sizes, these ratchets are narrower than Proto’s previous offerings so you can cram ‘em into tighter spaces. They’re also quick release; just push the button on the back to free the socket.

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You don’t own a boat or a trailer and you’re wondering what to do with your vehicle’s receiver hitch, so why not mount a grill? The Margaritaville from Freedom Grill sits on a heavy-duty swing arm that mounts in any 2″ receiver.

The grill’s 20,000 BTU stainless steel burner heats its 352 square-inch cooking surface using a 1 lb. propane tank or, with an optional adapter, a 20 lb. propane tank. The grill features fold-out side tables, a fold-down condiment tray, and even has carrying handles if you don’t feel comfortable with open flames near your gas tank.

You’ll pay about $400 for the Margaritaville Tailgating Grill.

Margaritaville [Freedom Grill]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

(TV Tonight, Friday, November 6th, 2009) We get a new episode of How It’s Made tonight where they explain how the white stuff gets in Oreos, or Canadian Oreo equivalents.

All times are central

• Holmes on Homes: Out of the Ashes (Part 2) (HGTV, 5:00 pm)
• How Do They Do It?: Ports, Contact Lenses, Tires (Science, 5:00 pm)
• Ask This Old House: Garage Organization, Ceiling Fan Installation (DIY, 5:30 pm)
• How Do They Do It?: Mining trucks, Ikea, air traffic (Science, 5:30 pm)
• Cool Tools: On the Surface (DIY, 6:00 pm)
• Dirty Jobs: Spray Insulation Technician (Discovery, 6:00 pm)
• How Do They Do It?: Glass, Changing a Jumbo Jet Tire, Soft Drink Cans (Science, 6:00 pm)
• How Do They Do It?: Gold, golf clubs, escalators (Science, 6:30 pm)
• Top Gear (BBC America, 7:00 pm)
• Dirty Jobs: Ice Salvage Crew (Discovery, 7:00 pm)
• How It’s Made: Rubber boots, binoculars, sparklers, circular-saw blades (Science, 7:00 pm)
• How It’s Made: Jukeboxes, tortilla chips, spark plugs, anatomical models (Science, 7:30 pm)
• Disaster House: Good Bones (DIY, 8:00 pm)
• How It’s Made: Stickers, surfboards, sandwich cookies, concrete roofing tiles (Science, 8:00 pm) NEW
• How It’s Made: Waffles, custom wires and cables, train wheels, metal golf clubs (Science, 8:30 pm)
• Deconstruction: Home Security (DIY, 10:30 pm)

Right now Tooldiscounter.net has the Milton 4-in-1 tire valve repair tool for $1.05.

The 4-in-1 tire valve tool is used to remove the valve stem of a tire valve, rethread both the inside and outside of the stem, and remove a broken valve. It’s a handy little tool that you only need when you need it, but if you need it, you need it! There are cheaper ones out there but the Milton seems to be higher quality. At least their catalog gives the tap size, if you’re curious: .2108″-36 tpi.

Amazon also has the tool for $3.03 [What’s This?]w/ super saver shipping eligibility so that may be a better deal.

Milton 445 4 Way Tire Valve Tool [tooldiscounter.com]

In a world where cordless seems to capture all the headlines, it’s always nice to see some love directed towards corded lines as well, like this new 3/8″ corded tradesman’s drill from Milwaukee. With an all-metal gear case and chuck, a whopping eight amp motor, and 0-2800 RPM variable speed, this sucker should really tear through wood and metal.

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Our friend Brad seems to have more fun on the job than should be legal in most states. Here we see him working with some lighting. And by “working” we mean having some fun, and by “fun” we mean destroying things. Brad posted his short video of this chain of events to the Flickr pool recently — demo in its best format, loud and messy.

If we tried that around here it would most likely turn out that we just destroyed something that needed to stay up. We’ll give him this: it’s the fast way to get a bunch of hanging lights down. The scene reminds us of a Wile E. Coyote setup.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

(TV Tonight, Thursday, November 5th, 2009) Not a bad night, starting with an IKEA factory tour, then new episodes of American Chopper and Street Customs. OCC building an electric bike? We bet they’ll bring in some outside help for that.

All times are central

• Junkyard Wars: Manic Mud Racers (Science, 5:00 pm)
• Ask This Old House: Installing a Shower Base, Rain Barrels (DIY, 5:30 pm)
• Cool Tools: Speciality (DIY, 6:00 pm)
• Street Customs: Vans Van (TLC, 6:00 pm)
• Junkyard Wars: Power Paddlers (Science, 6:00 pm)
• American Chopper: OCC Band Bike (TLC, 7:00 pm)
• Ultimate Factories: IKEA (National Geographic, 7:00 pm) NEW
• American Chopper: Siemens Electric Bike (TLC, 8:00 pm) NEW
• Successful Farming Machinery Show (RFD-TV, 8:00 pm)
• Street Customs: 2007 Maybach (TLC, 9:00 pm) NEW

Unless you have a fully-enclosed router table, your chip and dust collection probably leaves something to be desired. Instead of fully enclosing the entire table, Rockler’s Dust Bucket just encloses the router to get the same level of dust collection. When used in conjunction with a fence collection port, the Dust Bucket will allow you to collect virtually all the dust from your table.

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Following the more-is-better philosophy, the Bosch GPL5 uses five beams to project plumb, level, and square points. It also self-levels (up to 5°). Available for around $200, the 1 lb. unit is 4.125″ × 3.125″ × 1.625″, and can be secured using its 1/4-40 or 5/8-11 threaded mounts, or via straps or magnets with its multipurpose attachment. It can be easily re-calibrated in the field (and comes with a wrench for just that purpose). Its accuracy is ± ¼” @ 100′. Three AA batteries supply power.

If you’re not into multi-axis laser leveling, maybe you could modify the GPL5 for use as a garage/shop intruder alarm.

Bosch GPL5 [Manufacturer's Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Bosch GPL5 Via Amazon [What’s This?]

I mentioned a bit of a problem with my Shop Smith band saw that sprang up this weekend. The rubber tires that hold the blade on the wheels basically disintegrated after about 20 years or so, and the bottom one popped off the saw.

I called Shop Smith and was impressed with the service which was both prompt and knowledgeable. The very nice lady on the other end identified the model number of my saw and told me how I could save some cash by ordering a little differently and sent me on my way.

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Right now Kingsley North has the Raytech Tumble Vibe TV-5 vibratory tumbler for $90 with free shipping.

I admit I have tumbling on my mind a lot these days as I try to work out the best method for finishing production runs of our jewelry. Vibratory tumblers are excellent for using abrasive plastic media and ceramic burnishing media for finishing metal as well as for rock tumbling. Vibratory tumbling tends to be much quicker than rotary tumbling. This is not the same as the vibratory tumblers used for polishing as I posted in a previous Dealmonger; it is meant for heavier work, albeit smaller.

My only quibble with the Kingsley North deal is that the free shipping is actually $2.45 ($1.00 handing, $1.00 “special fee” and .45 insurance). It is still the lowest price out there for a small vibratory tumbler, however. And yes, I ordered one…

Raytech TV-5 [kingsleynorth.com]

(TV Tonight, Wednesday, November 4th, 2009) A new Mythbusters tonight about hurricanes and liquid nitrogen.

All times are central

• Ask This Old House: Replacing a Clogged Aerator, Proper Houseplant Care (DIY, 5:30 pm)
• Cool Tools: Power Play (DIY, 6:00 pm)
• MythBusters: End With a Bang (Discovery, 6:00 pm)
• MythBusters: Greased Lightning (Discovery, 7:00 pm)
• MythBusters: Hurricane Windows (Discovery, 8:00 pm) NEW
• MythBusters: Balloon Child; Ping Pong Rescue (Discovery, 9:00 pm)