(Sunday, August 31st, 2008) We’ve got a new Ice Road Truckers, but it’s a recap…

All times are central.

• Cool Tools: Down Under (DIY, 5:00 p.m.)
• Ice Road Truckers: Into the Whiteout (History, 5:00 p.m.)
• Dirty Jobs: 100th Dirty Job Special (Discovery, 5:00 p.m.)
• Ice Road Truckers: The Big Melt (History, 6:00 p.m.)
• Dirty Jobs: 100th Dirty Job Special (Discovery, 6:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Racing Shells, Stainless Steel Sinks, Leather, Pedal Steel Guitars (Science, 6:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Swords, Pontoons, Grandfather Clocks, Fuses (Science, 6:30 p.m.)
• Ice Road Truckers: The Final Run (History, 7:00 p.m.)
• Ice Road Truckers: Road to the Finale (History, 8:00 p.m.) NEW
• Cool Tools: Safety (DIY, 8:30 p.m.)
• Classic Tractors (RFD-TV, 8:30 p.m.)
• Under Construction: Roof Is on Fire, Secretary to Hire (DIY, 9:00 p.m.)
• Dirty Jobs: Cave Biologist (Discovery, 10:00 p.m.)

Enjoy.

(Saturday, August 30th, 2008) It’s another solid Saturday with no surprises.

All times are central.

• Cool Tools: Out of Reach (DIY, 5:00 p.m.)
• Ax Men: Picking Up the Pieces (History, 5:00 p.m.)
• Ax Men: The Final Haul (History, 6:00 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Rockets, Binocular Lenses, Windshield Wiper Blades (Science, 6:00 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Hydroelectric Power, Computer Microchips (Science, 6:30 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Mega Cargo Ships, Peterbilt Vehicles (Science, 7:00 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Mirrors, 2D car designs (Science, 7:30 p.m.)
• New Yankee Workshop: Flagpole (DIY, 8:00 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Navigating the Panama Canal, Waste Technology (Science, 8:00 p.m.)
• Wood Works: Wood-Finishes Tour (DIY, 8:30 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Shipping Packages, Mining Coal (Science, 8:30 p.m.)
• Wood Works: Treasure Box (DIY, 9:00 p.m.)
• Holmes on Homes: House Arrest (TLC, 9:00 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Passenger Airplanes, Lightweight Chainsaws (Science, 9:00 p.m.)
• Hammered With John & Jimmy DiResta: The Custom Chess Set (DIY, 9:30 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Weather Forecasting, Hovercraft Vehicles (Science, 9:30 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Air Filters, Billiard Cues, Ice Sculptures, Suits (Discovery, 10:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Escalator Handrails, Highlighters, Guitar Strings, Wigs (Discovery, 10:30 p.m.)

Enjoy.

Welding isn’t the cheapest hobby to pick up and start fooling around with, and some of the high-end gear can cost you more than a shiny new 60” HD TV. But there are ways to get your weld on without crossing into budget-killing territory — the Chicago Electric 90A flux-core welder comes to mind.

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Breaking your back on a smokin’ hot roof with your pitchfork-like tool is a little like hell on earth. Creator Bill Becoat thought there had to be an easier way to strip shingles from a roof, so he invented the Lil Doozie.  The Lil Doozie removes shingles faster and easier, all while sporting a devilish smirk.

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We don’t get around to cutting much stone or masonry around the Toolmonger shop, but these Turbo Rim diamond blades interest us.  Makita says their slick, no-segment design provides constant contact with material and delivers a smoother finish than segmented blades.

It’s hard to believe that such a small change as a solid rim can make such a big improvement, but we’ve seen them tucked into quite a few stone and masonry saws on jobsites where hardcore cutting is going down. We’ve talked to guys who swear by them — and others who just shrug and say their segmented blades have always worked fine.

What do you think? Are these smooth operators already entrenched as the best way to go?  Or do all the blades cut about the same, as long as the heat’s whisked away? Let us know in comments.

Turbo Rim Masonry Blades [Makita]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What's This?]

This neat little accessory from Bessey turns a bar clamp into an edge clamp, and it’s cheaper than buying one of their standalone edge clamps.  You can even perform operations that you could never do with a standalone edge clamp, like clamp pieces off-center or attach multiple edge clamps to a single bar to distribute the force on wider pieces.

Made in Germany, Bessey’s single-spindle edge-clamp add-on secures to the bar of most bar clamps with a T-knob.  Street pricing starts at $8.

Edge Clamps [Bessey]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

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:

Goodbye, Strap Wrench!
Forget about the marketing hype for a minute and recognize K&N for a simple addition that should be standard on all oil filters: they’ve eliminated the need for special filter wrenches by welding 1″ nuts to the top of their automotive and marine filter canisters and 17mm nuts to their motorcycle and ATV canister filters.

Curb Trailer Theft
Of course you want to keep your trailer securely locked to your vehicle — but what about securing your uncoupled trailer at home? Reese’s universal coupler lock fits into the ball socket on your trailer tongue, and locking it prevents the trailer from getting hitched to a vehicle.

Preview: GearWrench’s New Tire Pressure Monitoring System Kit
GearWrench recently announced the launch of its new tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) kit. The new kit will help with TPMS sensor maintenance during tire and rim changes — it features a sliding adjustable torque scale for easy setting and an audible alert that indicates when the desired torque has been reached.

Stihl’s Easy-On-The-Ears BR500 Blower
It’s not to say that 65 dB won’t still wake you up — it most likely will. However it might not startle the dead and alert the entire community that you’ve decided to do lawn work at way too early an hour. The unit weighs around 23 lbs and pushes out around 477 cfm to move the crap that’s lying around your yard to where it belongs –- the neighbor’s yard.

Preview: SOG Fatcat
SOG is to tactical knives what Armani is to suits — they may not be the absolute best in the world, but everyone looks to them to come out with the next big thing before leaping upon it themselves. The Fatcat has the solid, machined-titanium look of one of those soon-to-be-copied blades.

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.

When you decide to improve the appearance of your home, you quickly discover that real changes can cost more than your first car — but the cheap route, like adding little knick-knacks, doesn’t get it done either. You can steer the middle course pretty easily with additions like this faux wainscoting project we found on Skil’s website.

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All2ools.com is selling the Starrett 815 Toolmakers Hammer for only $51.51.  Ok, you may not need this tool around the shop too often, unless you do a lot of precision layout work.  But come on, it’s a hammer with a magnifying lens — how could you not want it?  And if you find yourself picking up a lens (to align your punch with layout lines, say) and then blindly groping around your bench for your hammer, this is the tool for you.

Starret 815 Toolmakers Hammer [all2ools.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

(Friday, August 29th, 2008) It’s a full Friday of fabricating — like leftover meatloaf, it may be old, but you still enjoy eating it.

All times are central.

• Rock Solid: Fire Pit and Grill (DIY, 5:00 p.m.)
• MythBusters: Birds in a Truck (Discovery, 5:00 p.m.)
• Rock Solid: Soapstone Kitchen Makeover (DIY, 5:30 p.m.)
• MythBusters: Myth Evolution (Discovery, 6:00 p.m.)
• Modern Marvels: Logging Tech (History, 7:00 p.m.)
• MythBusters: Air Cylinder Rocket (Discovery, 7:00 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Electricity, Floating Cranes (Science, 7:00 p.m.)
• How Do They Do It?: Gasoline Pumps, Swiss Army Knives (Science, 7:30 p.m.)
• Hammered With John & Jimmy DiResta: The Custom Chess Set (DIY, 8:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Carbon Fibre Masts, Fortune Cookies, IMAX Projectors, Roller Chains (Science, 8:00 p.m.)
• Wood Works: Cherry Sofa-Table (DIY, 8:30 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Firefighter Helmets, Nautical Compasses, Packaging Tubes, Hand Saws (Science, 8:30 p.m.)
• Wood Works: Apothecary Cabinet (DIY, 9:00 p.m.)
• New Yankee Workshop: The Lowboy (DIY, 9:30 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Trucks, Adhesive Bandages, Computer Circuit Boards, Liquors (Discovery, 10:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Fiberglass Boat, Clothes Dryers, Bubble Gum, Fireworks (Discovery, 10:30 p.m.)
• Forge and Anvil: Blacksmith Basics. Episode 102 (RFD-TV, 10:30 p.m.)

Enjoy.

If you’re in Pennsylvania this November, check out the WoodWorks show.  At this and other expos, you can build knowledge of difficult-to-master yet popular skills — plus it’s a great excuse to meet other woodcrafters and talk shop with folks who don’t get glazed-over eyes and start drooling every time you want to yak about glued vs. mechanical-lock joints.

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Trailing the Home Depot site by a few months, Lowe’s has revamped their web presence to net themselves a fresher look.  In the course of our Toolmongering we hit the site a few times during the last couple days — and while it’s a bit slow to load, the search function seems improved.

Lowe’s site never bothered us as bad as the Home Depot’s “No Items Returned” search-and-annoy feature, but the Lowe’s engine did require some special knowledge to word your searches to find what you needed. We hope the uber-slow load times are just a result of bugs being worked out — but if the search continues to return what we ask for, we’ll cope with load times.

Lowes.com [Website]

The guys from Trojan Manufacturing had a little fun with the name of this product, playing on the name of a famous country singer, but the Dolly-Cartin from Trojan Manufacturing is a serious tool.  Use it to transport sheet goods, doors and windows, mattresses, or anything else that fits its 9″-wide capacity, all by yourself.

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I always like to take quizzes like this one over on the ToolCrib site.  Our action around the Toolmonger shop indicates that we fall into the “Frugal” category, with a few hits on “Cheapskate.”  Is this childish and a waste of time?  Perhaps — but it’s entertaining.

This probably says as much about a person as a Redbook quiz on whether your relationship is in trouble, but it’s still fun to check out.  Based on the questions they ask and how they score you, you can also learn a lot about the people who wrote the quiz — probably more than they could guess about you.

Are You A Cheapskate Woodworker? Quiz [ToolCrib]

Seems like everything you buy today needs power and you can never find an outlet when you need it.  Sure, you can plug in a power strip or run extension cords from other nearby outlets, but that’s really just a band-aid that adds clutter.  In response to this ever-growing need for places to plug things in, Leviton makes a triplex receptacle that can accept three plugs simultaneously.

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Tool guys hate to swallow the bitter pill of tool trouble, when your sweet equipment takes a nose dive and you lose capability you once took for granted.  Reader Bill Schuller suffered such a loss when his ShopSmith Mark V tanked — he’s currently awaiting parts for it. Annoyed but not deterred, Bill took a stab at handcrafting a few mortise and tenon joints.

We applaud Bill’s spirit of “Screw it, I’ll do it anyway.” His bench is 3/4″ MDF slung across two sawhorses, and where the big Mark V would’ve made an easy time of his joints, the hand chisel and Dremel sitting in the background seem to be doing the job quite nicely. We admire the tenacity it takes to pick up a few tools and embark on an activity he hasn’t attempted since his school days when girls still had cooties.

Bill Schuller’s Shop Pics [Flickr]

BuilderDepot.com is selling the Osborne 223 revolving leather punch for only $16.48. The punch features replaceable tips, and it works quite well for punching holes in leather and other materials. Osborne has stayed in business for over 150 years — they know how to make good tools.

Revolving Leather Punch [BuilderDepot]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]