The best part about building furniture yourself:  You get exactly what you want, at half the price or less, and you still take care of the problem you were trying to solve.  With the temperature dropping, reader Beano_t’s other half was eyeing a high-end coat rack with a high-end price tag.  So Beano_t looked at it and built her one.

Simple, quick, and he didn’t have to spend a pile of cash to get there — we much prefer this solution over throwing money at furniture.  Not only is it built to fit exactly in the space where it’ll live, Beano got to play in the shop and be a hero on the home front. This sounds like a win all the way around to us.  Well done, Beano.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

When you’re pulling up a hill and your truck needs more power, the transmission drops to a lower gear to compensate — a common occurrence for a vehicle, not so common for a drill.  But Ridgid’s AutoShift drill driver does just that.

When you pull the trigger, it starts in high speed. If it starts to bog down, the drill downshifts to low speed for more torque.  You can also lock out the AutoShift feature so the drill stays in high gear.

(more…)

If you’re paranoid about your neighbors stealing your water when you’re sleeping, you either need to see your doctor about some medication, or you need Nibco’s FaucetLock.  The FaucetLock screws over existing hose bibs without tools and prevents water theft or tampering.

(more…)

None of the traditional holiday email-o-grams get me, but Craftsman’s “Share a Scare” is pretty amusing. Sure, it’s also a way to capture your email, but at least it gives you something else to do at the office instead of working.

If you’re eager to make the robot deliver a very “special” Halloween message to your friends and co-workers, we hate to break it to you that this one isn’t “George Carlin”-friendly.  Most of the nasty words have been disabled — ahem, or so we hear.

Share A Scare [Craftsman]

Amazon is selling this right-angle drill attachment for $8.  This cheap problem solver’ll help you get into tight spaces.

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

(Wednesday, October 29th, 2008) Discovery brings us new episodes of Mythbusters, Prototype This, and Time Warp.  Of course, you only really care about Mythbusters.  We also get a new Deconstruction on saving energy.

All times are central.

• World’s Toughest Fixes: Nuclear Turbine (National Geographic, 5:00 p.m.)
• Rock Solid: Limestone Tile Entryway (DIY, 5:30 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Handcuffs, Caulking and Joint Compound, Propane Tanks, and Forensic Facial Reconstruction (Discovery, 6:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Fur Coat, Hearse, Outdoor Lighting Fixtures, and Golf Tee (Discovery, 6:30 p.m.)
• Ask This Old House (DIY, 7:00 p.m.)
• Time Warp: Taser (Discovery, 7:00 p.m.) NEW
• Time Warp: Human Crash Test Dummy (Discovery, 7:30 p.m.) NEW
• Deconstruction: Home Energy Saving (DIY, 8:00 p.m.) NEW
• MythBusters: Motorcycle Flip (Discovery, 8:00 p.m.) NEW
• Wrecked: Keep on Trucking (Speed, 9:00 p.m.)
• Prototype This!: Traffic-Busting Truck (Discovery, 9:00 p.m.) NEW
• World’s Toughest Fixes: Boeing 767 (National Geographic, 9:00 p.m.)
• Wrecked: Two Brothers, One Showdown (Speed, 9:30 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Pro Hockey Sticks, Bronzed Baby Shoes, Treadmills, Handheld Computers (Discovery, 10:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Motorcycle, Clay Pipes, Drumsticks, Whistles (Discovery, 10:30 p.m.)

Enjoy.

A while back, Johnson Levels played host to the explain-all show How It’s Made.  The resulting five-minute overview demystifies the making of a time-tested measuring tool –- the level.

They do a great job breaking down the production process for a laminated birch level.  Of course, the real trick is getting the vials right and getting them in the beam as accurately as possible.

Though they didn’t show it, I was curious to see if they glued up, cut, and sanded the beam on-site or had them prefabricated elsewhere.  I suppose that part of the process isn’t very interesting to anyone but wood geeks, so I can see why it didn’t get any airtime.

Johnson Level - How It’s Made [YouTube]
Johnson Level [Website]

A hand truck makes so many jobs easier, but if you just don’t have the space, it’s hard to justify owning one.  Welcom caters to the space-poor with their Magna Cart — this collapsible 150lb-capacity hand truck folds up to just 25″ tall by 15″ wide by 2″ thick.

(more…)

Some call ‘em random orbital sanders — I always call ‘em jitterbugs — either way, they’re the go-to tool for a smooth surface finish.  The vigorous circular motion of the sandpaper helps prevent sanding lines and swirl marks, and you don’t have to worry about the direction of the grain.  3M has released a new line of random orbital sanders with the catchy name “Random Orbital Sander.”  I guess the marketing department had the day off.

(more…)

Some of the best everyday stuff sprang from the minds of lazy tinkerers.  Kevin Blake built this steel-frame recumbent snowplow bike from old bicycle parts, a riding lawnmower, and a few snow shovels.

(more…)

Magswitch MagJigs allow you to easily position and remove your jigs on steel and cast iron tables.  Now Magswitch is introducing their own MagFence jigs, designed for use with these handy switchable magnets. Common to all their jigs is a universal base that accepts two 30mm MagJigs or 20mm MagJigs using an adapter ring.

(more…)

Black & Decker’s PP360 driver looks like a hopped-up Smartdriver with an additional feature or two added on.  But that’s not really a bad thing — small though it was, the Smartdriver at least got the job done.

(more…)

Industrial Boys is selling a 16oz. bottle of Tapmatic’s Natural Cutting and Tapping Fluid for $10.86.  Lately we’ve switched to this fluid for most of our tapping jobs.  It smells odd, but it definitely reduces the amount of tapping force required, compared to other cutting oils we’ve tried.

16oz. Tapmatic Natural Cutting And Tapping Fluid [Industrial Boys]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

(Tuesday, October 28th, 2008) Mike Rowe has the life sucked out of him on a new Dirty Jobs, and the new Deconstructed lovingly dissects a bunch of stuff.

All times are central.

• Machinery of the Past (RFD-TV, 5:00 p.m.)
• Rock Solid: Stamped Concrete (DIY, 5:30 p.m.)
• Modern Marvels: Failed Inventions (History, 6:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Pro Hockey Sticks, Bronzed Baby Shoes, Treadmills, Handheld Computers (Discovery, 6:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Motorcycles, Clay Pipes, Drumsticks, Whistles (Discovery, 6:30 p.m.)
• Ask This Old House (DIY, 7:00 p.m.)
• Dirty Jobs: Sheep Castrator (Discovery, 7:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Bumpers, Lighting Gels and Camera Filters, Steam-powered Models, Candy Canes (Science, 7:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Umbrellas, Outboard Motors, Silver Cutlery, Tape Measures (Science, 7:30 p.m.)
• Dirty Jobs: Leech Trapper (Discovery, 8:00 p.m.) NEW
• Deconstructed: Quartz Watch, Vacuum Cleaner, Microphone, MP3 Player (Science, 8:00 p.m.) NEW
• Rock Solid: Soapstone Kitchen Makeover (DIY, 8:30 p.m.)
• Deconstructed: Car battery, echo locator, incandescent light bulb, telescope (Science, 8:30 p.m.)
• Deconstruction: Paint (DIY, 9:30 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Pistons, Paint Rollers, Parachutes, Chimneys (Discovery, 10:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: CO2 Cartridges, Pretzels, Scissor Lifts, Skating Rinks (Discovery, 10:30 p.m.)

Enjoy.

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.

(more…)

You won’t become a master woodworker overnight just because you bought the latest gear or learned a good technique at the WoodWorking Show.  However, all those tips and tricks and shiny tools do help you along a bit — plus, shows are a great place to hang with like-minded crafters.

(more…)

Lenox and a handful of other sponsors have teamed up to build the “Site Commander” — actually, they built three of them, and you can enter to win one.  The meat of the prize is a 2008 Dodge 5500 HD 4×4 Quad Cab with 305 HP and 610 foot-pounds of torque.  They don’t say it, but that sounds like a 6.7L Cummins Turbo Diesel.

(more…)