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:
Cheap-Ass Tools: 1,000-Pound-Engine Cradle
When it’s time to tally up the build cost of that project car, we’re guessing most builders don’t want “engine stand” to even figure in — we wouldn’t either. To get that block off the floor you usually have to make a choice: Go cheap and risk it, or go big and have the cost cut into your build. The 1,000lb.-engine cradle from TP gives you the best of both worlds by being both cheap, at $33, and sturdy.
Yellow Rubber Wilton Bench-Vise Bumpers
When you want to firmly hold something that’s easily crushed, your vise can use all the help it can get. We’ve featured vise-jaw covers like Soff Jaws on Toolmonger before, but Wilton designed these jaw covers with cutouts so they can better grip round objects — they should work great for holding wood, tubing, soft metal widgets, and irregularly shaped doohickeys.
What Knucklehead Bent My Pipe Wrench?
This isn’t the work of some strong man — Ridgid intended its offset hex wrench to look like this. They claim the odd-shaped jaws give you a secure grip on multiple sides of hex and square nuts, unions, and valve packing nuts. Plus it opens from 1-1/8″ to 2-5/8″ wide, allowing you to fit it around tub and sink drain nuts.
Preview: Metabo’s Big-Ass 96 SDS-Max Hammer
Metabo added a new bruiser to the fold with their MHE 96 SDS-Max demolition hammer. Built around a big-ass 15A motor stuffed into an aluminum case, it features Metabo’s best anti-vibration technology, which they call MVT. This hammer’ll bust up concrete and stone, and also keep the neighbor kids in their own yard –- you know, the basics.
Industrial-Hemp Grinder
CS Unitec has come up with a green alternative for grinding steel — they make the backing plates of their PLANTEX discs from natural hemp fiber with a 1% polypropylene binder.
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.
