Now that smoking isn’t politically correct, most automobiles don’t come with a cigarette lighter — the manufacturers have repurposed that hole as a power port. Fill the empty port with the Auto LED flashlight from Coast. You can leave it charging in your vehicle’s power port, always ready, like the lighter it replaced.
Watching other folks screw up a lifting operation never gets old — but it always makes you wonder about the circumstances at the scene when they were rigging it up. Did the crane operator have somewhere else to be? Did he bet his buddy he could screw this bad boy up in under twenty seconds?
It just doesn’t occur to people that what you may think is a permanent connection or solid object is only strong in one direction. Lifting on an object with four times its own weight slung under it isn’t the best plan of action. We suspect they came to that conclusion at about second 13 of the video.
Vrachtwagen Valt [YouTube]
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:
Joe Pardue Custom Knives
A few weeks ago we were chatting about how some of the most breathtaking knives aren’t made by large companies or factories, but by a skilled craftsman, one at a time — Joe Pardue is one such knife-maker. His work integrates function and art in a stunning package.
A Die Grinder For Hard-To-Reach Areas
Get into tight corners where your old die grinder can’t reach with AirCat’s inside-corner die grinder. With its 4″ wheel you can access angles as shallow as 30°. The tool’s 17″ length also allows you to reach into confined spaces.
Carbon Pile Load Tester
Measuring 14 volts at your vehicle’s battery terminals doesn’t tell you squat about how your battery will perform when you actually try to start your vehicle — that’s where a variable load tester like Electronic Specialties’ #710 comes in handy. With this tester you can test batteries rated as high as 1,000 cold-cranking amps or 160 amp hours.
Fishing With A Dart Gun
At first glance, Greenlee’s CableCaster looks like someone slapped a fishing reel on a toy dart gun — that may be exactly what they did, but the $100 list price is no joke. The CableCaster allows you to pull cable through hard-to-reach spaces, like above a suspended ceiling or through a crawlspace.
Preview: Case XX Select 10th Anniversary Knives
Case is celebrating the tenth anniversary of their XX Select brand by releasing a few limited-edition blades, with handles made of some of the most popular materials. Each knife features a surgical steel blade with a series-signature tang stamp and a special “XX” shield on the handle.
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.
With the Folding Pocket Wrench you can carry around an entire set of open-end wrenches in your pocket. The double-ended wrench folds down to 5″ x 2″ x 3/4″ to fit comfortably in its included nylon belt pouch. Its integrated spacer blades act as shims to adjust the wrench to the fastener size, rather than using a thumb wheel that needs constant adjustment.
Every time I see Mechanix vent gloves I think of the eighties, when guys used to wear leather driving gloves with the fingers cut off. Perhaps it’s the holes in the hand, but they always produce a chuckle.
You might ask, “Are these the same as the regular gloves, just with holes?” Yes, yes they are. Aside from sporting the “80s Awesomeness” they’re the same Mechanix gloves you might find in any shop, just with more of a perforated vibe. Down here where it’s hot eight months out of the year, you do actually see them around. White isn’t the best color in the world for ‘em, but they don’t stay that way for long.
Pricing is about the same at $18 to $20 per pair.
Vent Glove [Mechanix]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Virtual Village is selling this 7.5mm-14.5mm stainless steel radius gage set for $6. Radius gages come in handy for checking part radii and doing layout — there’s really no alternative when working with curved features.
Stainless Steel Radius Gage Set [Virtual Village]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
(Friday, October 31st, 2008) A new How It’s Made deals with spooky topics like the accordion.
All times are central.
Enjoy.
When someone needs something strange done, they come to a tool guy, and Halloween is no exception. This haunted bookshelf is pretty entertaining, even though it sounds like an old washing machine.
Though we suppose it could actually be an old washing-machine motor behind there, it’s most likely some sort of bench-tool motor attached to a few levers and a cam-crank. It does give us a few ideas for next year.
Halloween Project: Moving Bookshelf [YouTube]
Beauty can break out in unexpected places. The shop, for instance, looks like a pile of tools and junk heaped together, but to a Toolmonger it’s a pile of possibility and future projects. Even the shop itself is beautiful if you take a moment to look — reader ghb624 captured this image of his shop in the morning right before he kicked on the lights.
Sometimes you can make a serviceable arc with just a couple of nails and a thin piece of wood, but what if you need to exactly replicate an arc or produce an arc of a known radius? You break out Hoyle’s Acu-Arc adjustable ruler.
Up-North lore says a yeti is an elusive snow Wookiee that lives in the Himalayas — you know, the Abominable Snowman. And it’s pretty easy to lure one out into the open: Just steal a guy’s tools out the back of his truck, and sooner or later the yeti/owner will appear, screaming his fool head off. The guys at Trident Security Concepts want to arm you with a Yeti of your own, so you don’t have to become one. We got our hands on one of the screaming yellow security units to find out if it could actually help keep your gear safe or not. Guess what? In certain situations it could.
Until vehicles come with outlets built right into the dash, we’ll have to settle for the nuisance of portable inverters. To help disguise what’s often a tangled, messy eyesore, Original Power cleverly designed their PowerCup in the shape of a coffee cup, to take advantage of the ubiquitous cup holders in cars, trucks, and even boats. It provides two 120V AC outlets and a USB charging port.
On the side of the road in the middle of the night isn’t the best time to find out you can’t manage to wrench the lugs off that flat tire. This torque-multiplying removal tool from Harbor Freight claims to give you a 30-to-1 advantage over those with muscle-power-only solutions.
GetMachineTools.com is selling this Phase II dial bore gage set for $52. Dial bore gages come in very handy indeed when you’re making comparative or absolute checks of bore diameter and geometry.
Phase II Dial Bore Gage Set [GetMachineTools.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
(Thursday, October 30th, 2008) OCC makes a bike for a company that develops horrible theme restaurants, one of which may feature a custom chopper based on a ‘57 Chevy(?). We also get a new Factory Floor covering more stuff you’ve seen before and a new Wrecked for those of you who are Tow-headed.
All times are central.
Enjoy.
TP Tools’ sale catalog always features a few cheap tools that might be worth a quick look — for instance, this 3/8” close-quarters drill for $50. You can certainly find cheaper drills running around, but this one offers the major advantage of a short spine, so it’ll fit in tight spots.
This is the plug-in variety, which means a lot of the on-board girth is motor, not battery and controller gear — so it’ll likely out-torque and out-grunt most similar-sized battery-powered units. Sure, you probably won’t hand it down to the next generation, but it could help out if you’re constantly short of clearance when drilling holes in the shop.
3/8″ Close-Quarters Drill [TP Tools]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Knurling can be used for grip, for decoration, or to repair worn parts that don’t fit together tightly anymore — but how exactly do you transfer the knurl pattern onto a piece of metal without an expensive lathe setup? For small jobs and repair work, you buy a hand knurler like the K1-207 Knurlmaster from Eagle Rock.
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