Everyone should own a few stubby screwdrivers; they fit into the tiny spaces your standard ‘drivers won’t. But what happens when you’re short on space but need to really crank down hard on a screw? Normally you’re screwed — unless you have one of these. Craftsman calls ‘em “Super Stubby” screwdrivers: a standard-sized handle with a stubby shaft and tip.

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Although it looks like a bib from an all-you-can-eat buffet, you might appreciate this apron if you’ve ever been working on a project with many small parts and lost a critical part on the floor. The apron attaches to the bottom edge of your workbench to catch any components that try to make a break for it over the edge.

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DeWalt’s TrackSaw system makes performing long straight cuts easier on-site, but their router adapter really caught our eye. Just mount your router and it slides right into the 59″ or 102″ tracks from the TrackSaw set — perfect for routing long channels for rails in built-in bookcases.

There’s just one downside:  While the adapter’ll set you back just $60, you’ll have to pony up a cool $500 for the least expensive TrackSaw kit (read: the saw with the 59″ track). So if you already have a TrackSaw rig, this would be a cheap way to add some additional (and handy) functionality. If you’re just utilizing your circ saw as a poor man’s table saw — because you’re a cheap-ass like us — you might want to look for a less expensive alternative.

TrackSaw Router Adapter [DeWalt]
Street Pricing [Google]

A friend of mine called me today having recently seen Skil’s Power Wrench (pictured) on QVC. Her question: Is it good for anything around the house? Sadly I don’t have a good answer. My father had an old Black & Decker model that looked sorta similar back in the early ’90s and it was pretty worthless. But then again, battery — and small device — technology has come a long way since then. Has it improved this tool type?

If you have some experience with this model (or these tools in general) I’d love to hear about it in comments. And if you have one, don’t forget to tell us what you do with it!

Skil Power Wrench [QVC]

Deep in the throes of winter, this interesting little scraper caught our eye. Normally your windshield scraper only scrapes in one direction, but this orbital ice scraper from Carrand — think Mr. Clean — lets you maximize your efforts by scraping in any direction.  Any tool that gets you out of the cold faster and into your warming car is worth a look.

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I’m not yet an expert on veneer, but I plan on becoming one. Good hardwood veneer can make even a cheap project look great — and provides access to woods I could never afford whole. (Lacewood desk, anyone?) But I’m a little scared of the old-school hammer/animal glue method. I’m thinking of going with more modern adhesives and something like this veneer smoothing blade from Rockler.

With a 9-inch hard-maple handle and a flexible plexi blade, it looks like just the thing to push down those difficult edges. But I’d love to hear from other Toolmongers with more experience. Is this $14 tool (and method) the way to go?

Veneer Smoothing Blade [Rockler]

ToolDiscounter.com is selling the Lisle 30050 belt tool for $12.85 — it’s a handy folding set of five body-trim tools in one fold-up tool.

Lisle Belt Tool [ToolDiscounter.com]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

(TV Tonight, Tuesday, December 31st, 2008) Hey, it’s New Year’s Eve — you won’t be watching TV anyway. Speed is running the Barrett-Jackson auctions and Discovery is showing a Machines of Malice marathon in case you’re really bored.

All times are central.

• Rock Solid: Functionless Front Entrance Fix-Up (DIY, 6:00 pm)
• Rock Solid: Outdoor Labyrinth (DIY, 6:30 pm)
• Rock Solid: Interlocking Stone Wall and Steps (DIY, 7:00 pm)
• Rock Solid: Canal Brick Courtyard (DIY, 7:30 pm)

Enjoy.

After the massive orgy of greed that is the ending of the season, and with a belly full of way too many homemade cookies, I started picking through the collection of stuff that had accumulated in the office while we’d attended to other tasks like eating and goofing off.  Amongst the pile was this great article from Woodcarving Illustrated about the Leg Lamp.

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If you want to know what a ghost town looks like, just go to the big boxes today and stroll down an aisle or two.  You won’t encounter another living soul, and you’ll see what was once a cornucopia of sale material reduced to empty shelves and what’s soon to be last year’s tools.  But don’t let this get you down — there’s still some interesting action.

In the lull between the end of the holiday season and next year, you can find some great odds and ends.  For instance, an entire shopping cart of bathroom lighting fixtures was rolled out into the middle of an open area with $20 stickers slapped on them. These same fixtures ran $180 earlier this summer.

Perhaps they’re not the world’s greatest sales, and they won’t be advertised, but they’re there.  Take advantage of the markdowns if you have need.

Lowe’s [Website]

This 6″-long clamp holds small, irregularly shaped objects with steel pins rather than flat jaws.  The pins fit in 60 hexagonally spaced holes on the face of the clamp, allowing you to clamp almost any shape as long as it’s smaller than the clamp head.

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Our own Benjamen Johnson posted to the Flickr pool this little sneak of what’s going on in his shop.  Note the pegboard in the back, confirming that he supports those on the pro-pegboard side of the fence –- at least a little. The homebuilt workbench in the center of the shop also looks like a fine place to get some work done.

Like us, Ben seems to be a student of the ‘grip it and rip it’ philosophy of shop design — it’s simple, clean, and not over-thought or over-designed.  “Make it work, and we’ll figure out the rest later.  Right now we’ve got stuff to do.”  We can dig it.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

When we posted the EasyCoper a while ago, we were disappointed they didn’t make a similar tool for base or other flat molding.  Now that’s changed — recently EasyCoper introduced the BaseCoper, their new jig for coping flat moldings with a hand-held jigsaw.

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When someone asks to borrow a tool from the Toolmonger shop, we usually don’t say, “Over our dead bodies” — unless the tool in question is our faithful Fluke 77 Multimeter.  Though it’s not the latest model out there, it still keeps pace with any meter currently on the market.

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Blue Lake Tackle is selling this Hoppes bore light for $4.50.  It’ll help you examine the bores of firearms, and it’s useful for piping light into all sorts of odd recesses besides.

Hoppes BRL1 Bore Light [Blue Lake Tackle]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

(TV Tonight, Tuesday, December 30th, 2008) We’ve got a new Extreme Trains tonight. Ok, so trains aren’t really Toolmonger-y, but we love ‘em anyway.

All times are central.

• Machinery of the Past (RFD-TV, 5:00 pm)
• Ask This Old House (DIY, 5:30 pm)
• Rock Solid (DIY, 6:30 pm)
• Cool Tools: Change of Season (DIY, 7:00 pm)
• Cool Tools: Cut Above (DIY, 7:30 pm)
• Deconstructed: Toaster, lawn mower, transformer, speaker (Science, 8:00 pm)
• Rock Solid: Fireplace Facelift (DIY, 8:30 pm)
• Deconstructed: Coffee Machine, Inkjet Printer, Laser Level, and Scooba Robotic Floor Cleaner (Science, 8:30 pm)
• Extreme Trains: Transcontinental (History, 9:00 pm) NEW
• Deconstruction: Granite (DIY, 9:30 pm)
• Extreme Trains: Ice Cold Express (History, 10:00 pm)

Enjoy.

Marking gauges traditionally use a hardened point or an easy-to-lose graphite point to scratch a layout line, but this marking gauge from Gladstone tools instead uses a regular hexagon-shaped pencil to draw lines as far as 8″ away from the edge of your work.

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