Sean and I run down this week’s top five tools as chosen by the readers of Toolmonger.com. Highlights: We rekindle the old-school vs. new tool debate, talk about chain saw carving and stump pulling, and discuss the rights and wrongs about fasteners. Remember, if you’ve got a question or comment for us — or some staining/sealing tips – you can call us at 866-718-9403. (Podcast Download)
Tired of lying on a cold concrete floor while wrenching on your ride, but don’t have room (in the garage or under the car) for a standard creeper? Check out Lisle’s fold-up creeper. It doesn’t have wheels — and it isn’t pretty – but it does offer some padding and mobility down under.
We’ve personally be fans of the Flymo for some time, but it seems like the Brits want to keep all that orange Flymo coolness tending lawns under the Union Jack alone. OK, maybe under the Union Jack and what seems like every other flag in the world save the stars and stripes.
The Flymo brand has been around for decades and from what we can see they’ve put some hardcore design work into their offerings. Their product line doesn’t stop at mowers, either, extending to include hedge trimmers, blowers, and lawn vacuums. Oh yeah, there’s also the Visimo, which looks like a tiny formula-one racer with a rice rocket wing on the back, too.
We would love to see some Flymo products on this side of the pond, but we’d like to know what you think. Are they hot enough to make it in the good ‘ole US of A or not? Let us know in comments, especially if you’ve had experience with ‘em.
Flymo Products [Flymo]
Stanley’s new hi-vis tape line includes one significant new feature: its color. Not only will this be easy to spot around the shop, you’re also likely to be the only guy on the jobsite carrying one like this, so you’ll know when someone walks off with it. And if you drop it in the dirt, you’ll have a good chance of finding it.
I learned this the hard way with my portable recording rig. Picture this: I’m squatting at the back of a dark theater setting up my rig in almost complete darkness. I really need to see to hook up the power, so I grab my trusty (black) Mini Mag-Lite. But before I can turn it on, I drop it. It’s black, the floor is black, and for that matter, everything is black. It’s gone. Doh!
Look, I love Mag-Lites as much as the next guy. But buying a black flashlight strikes me along the same lines as painting your bush plane green with leaf-shaped brown spots — it’s just a bad idea. Buy the silver ones! Or blue. Or red. Just not black! Black flashlights sort of defeat the purpose of having a flashlight; if you can’t find it, you can’t use it.
Amazon has this Black & Decker 200W 12V (to 115V) power inverter for $18 today. It features ground fault interruption, battery clips, a DC accessory plug, and it automatic shuts down to keep you from stranding yourself by draining your battery completely. And hey — 200 watts will actually run some pretty serious gear.
200W Power Inverter [Black & Decker]
Via Amazon
Street Pricing [Google Product Search]
Ever cross-threaded a spark plug? Trust us, it sucks. You generally have to heli-coil ‘em since you can’t re-tap it because you risk dropping bits of metal into the engine — until now. These expandable spark plug socket rethreaders from MAC Tools slip past the damaged threads then expand to engage them, allowing you to “chase” the threads from the bottom up. Debris comes up and out with the rethreader.
(Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007) Tonight: nothing much new, but at least there’s a lot to watch. As we have recommended before, the All-Clad segment on Made in America is great, and Trade School’s “Aviaton Maintenance” should show us some interesting techniques.
All times are central.
Enjoy.
These people from GreeneMotor brought out a number of motorcycles and scooters that they converted entirely to electric power. They claim that you can ride 450 miles on a single dollar’s worth of juice — even at California rates. Thumb your noses at the Prius crowd — you’re really green now. At least you’d be the first person on your block with an almost totally silent ride.
GreeneMotor [Greenemotor.com]
The guys over at the Crucible created this BMW-car-powered land speed motorcycle in their spare time and are hoping to set some records with it later this year. In this picture, the front fairing has been removed so the crowd can see their sweet engine installation.
The Crucible is a community learning center where Bay Area residents come to learn blacksmithing, welding, woodworking, metal casting, and all sorts of interesting — and almost lost, in some cases — skills. We’ll definitely have more on the crucible here on Toolmonger later.
Really. We’re not kidding. A person runs in the “human wheel” on the left, which powers this 30-foot-tall nose picker. It’s called “The Disgusting Spectacle,” and the line is at last 20′ long to give it a whirl.
Tracks + boiler = seriously cool RC vehciles! I saw this little sucker a few minutes ago in the robotics pavilion. A few seconds after I took this picture he set up a bunch of miniature logs and ran them over. Nice.
We’re readers (and big fans) of Robot magazine, and they’re here at Maker Faire in force today located over in the robotics pavilion. We stopped to say hello, and you should, too. Even if you’re not here at the Faire, check out their website where you can subscribe. We do!
Robot Magainze [BotMag.com]
Yep — this is just what it looks like: a massive walking robotic giraffe that can actually carry three or four people on its back. We’ll see if we can’t get some better pictures (and maybe some video) later.
These guys have converted numerous Priuses (Pri-i?) from pure Hybrid to plug-in mode, allowing them to achieve 100+ MPG in daily driving. The best part: they’re putting together a kit to help you do it, too! There’s a lot of re-programming involved, so they’re hoping to provide you all the tough stuff so all you’ll need is some tools, time, a Prius, and a desire to shun gasoline like the plague.
We’ll bring you more information about this when we get back into the office, as I’d imagine a number of you’ll be interested in trying this yourselves.
I just saw a spinner kick the living crap out of this mean-looking beer keg smasher — knocking him out of this weekend’s competition. A word to those of you who haven’t seen a live competition of this sort: it’s a lot wilder than it looks on TV. These robots knock parts off each other and send them crashing into the lexan shields at an alarming rate. You can clearly hear a “THWACK.” Wow!
We saw this over in the robotics pavilion this morning, and it’s just what it looks like: a drum kit wired with actuators to play itself. It’s quite appropriately named “Animal.”
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