Back In The Day: A Year Ago This Week On Toolmonger

Remember old-school Toolmonger that was all young, dumb and full of… vigor? So do we. Check out what we were discussing a year ago this week:

• I shared a great story about wrecking my dad’s Camaro, leading up to telling readers how this inflatable dent remover might have saved my teenage life.
• We dropped an anvil on Sean’s foot.
• We put 946-and-a-half pounds on Husky’s X-Workhorse portable work stand, but couldn’t manage to break it. (Check out the great picture of Sean standing by our handiwork.)
• A reader tipped us off to the Swench manual impact wrench, some models of which can deliver over 1,000 ft-lbs of torque. He used it on a nuclear aircraft carrier, so it should fit right in around your garage.
• Shuttle astronauts broke an “articulating socket” while installing a new 17-1/2 ton solar panel on the International Space Station, and we felt their pain. The closest Home Depot was at least 150 miles below. NASA kindly sent over some photos of their killer tool box.
• Reader PeterP wrote in to show us himself hamming it up with the V18 combo kit he won right here on Toolmonger.
• We loved GearWrench’s then-new X-Beam wrenches. They’re still a favorite.
• I dished on why you should own a set of good files.
• And we tried out Hobart’s awesome welding gloves. They’re absolutely sweet, and, um, Hobart? We promise we’ll get ‘em back to you sometime. Maybe.

Of course, you don’t have to wait for us to call out these great old posts. Try plugging your areas of interest into TM’s search engine to turn up hours of old-school TM fun. See you next week.