I’ve gotta go along with Sean when he said (in reporting a similar recall last August) “sometimes I’m glad I don’t own a gas grill.” The manufacturer and importer of the SLG series “Perfect Flame” brand outdoor propane or natural gas grills is voluntarily recalling almost 663,000 of the above-pictured model in the United States and an other 1,700 in Canada. Why?

The firm has received about 40 reports of fires from the burners deteriorating and about 23 reports of the lids catching fire. The firm is aware of one report of an eye injury requiring surgery and 21 incidents of minor burns to the hands, arms, or face.

Ouch!

(more…)

Full disclosure: I know very little about TIG welding. I’m okay with a MIG rig, and I can stick weld well enough to hook things together, but I’ve never handled a TIG torch. So when I received a press release from Weldcraft indicating that they’d expanded their gas lens line a bit, I had to hit the ‘net to discover that a gas lens is simply a fitting that re-directs the gas normally emitted from the torch, focusing it to provide more even coverage and flow for a given welding situation.

It makes sense to me, then, why Weldcraft would be proud of offering a relatively wide range of lenses in standard size, large diameter, and stubby to fit just about all their air and water-cooled TIG torches.

Gas Lenses Improve TIG Welding Performance [Weldcraft]

On a recent junkyard trip Sean and I came across this monstrosity in a Ford. Sean’s comment: “Wanna take one guess as to how this guy crashed?” Known most commonly as a “spinner knob” (or alternatively as a “suicide knob”), more sturdy and functional versions of this thing made cranking a whopping huge steering wheel around three or four full revolutions lock-to-lock easier. But with the advent of modern power steering — and a strong desire among most state motor vehicle departments to discourage the inaccurate steering inputs that lead to over-control — spinners are actually illegal in some places around the U.S.

But a non-spinning version made from nylon tape and a golf ball? That’s just an accident waiting to happen.

(more…)

Everybody’s trying to come up with the next gotta-have-it multi-tool like the try-square. Great Neck Saw’s attempt packs 10 measuring tools in one device. The Mayes Squangle is basically a square with an extra adjustable arm that swings from 45° to 90° and locks with two thumbscrews. To increase their tool count, they threw in a bubble vial.

(more…)

Will lasers make wigglers obsolete? There’s a case to be made that you can set up your mill faster and with less fuss with a tool like the pictured laser edge/center finder. Move the laser beam to the edge of the workpiece and zero your scale. You can just as easily locate the mill over scribed lines or center-punch divots by aligning the laser dot over them.

The finder is accurate to 0.001″ and the dot size is adjustable with a polarizing attachment. The finder uses SR44 batteries that last for over three hours of continuous operation; of course you’ll probably only turn on the finder for short sessions, so the batteries should last a while.

(more…)

Specialty tools for a given engine family drive me nuts. Is it really that difficult to design something which works with thousands of preexisting tools? Unfortunately, General Motors didn’t do that with their Ecotec engines’ oil filter caps, which are so common that nearly every mechanic is going to run into one at some point. Ecotecs have an unusual cartridge-style filter design. Instead of a paper filter element contained in a disposable metal casing, there’s an aluminum housing cast into the block which accepts a standalone paper filter, and it’s covered by a plastic cap with unusual artillery-pattern threads and a 32mm male hex on top.

(more…)

Deep.See.Bits™ are bits with marking bands every ½” (in the Imperial-sized bits; 10mm in the metric-sized bits). They look like they could be a reasonable alternative to plastic or metal depth stops and the ever-popular masking tape. I recently tried to drill some shallow holes in plywood using a metal depth stop, and the drill flutes kept getting clogged because the depth stop prevented the drill from clearing. M.POWER®, from Wiltshire, England, makes Deep.See.Bits™ as HSS twist bits for hardwoods, metal, and plastics, or as carbon steel brad points specifically for woodworking. All bits are available in both metric and Imperial sizes. Japan Woodworker carries an eight-piece brad-point set (1/8″, 5/32″, 3/16″, 1/4″, 9/32″, 5/16″, 11/32″, and 3/8″) for $19.75, but it can be found online for $12.63.

Deep.See.Bits™ [Manufacturer's Site]
Etched-Index 8 Piece Bradpoint Drill Set [Japan Woodworker]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Few things in woodworking are more satisfying than making a perfect paper-thin shaving with a well-maintained plane. If you’re using a spill plane you’re actually trying to make special shavings called spills rather than trimming wood from a work piece. A spill is a long coiled wood shaving that was used to transfer flame, such as from fireplace to candles, before the advent of matches. Before finding this spill plane from Lee Valley, as far as I was aware, you either had to buy an antique spill plane or make one yourself.

(more…)

I made a replacement sight elevator for an air rifle the other day. It required me to undercut a groove in a tiny piece of plastic (1/4″x1/4″x1/2″). I found that I had some micro keyseat cutters (marked “Richards”) and gave them a try. Normally keyseat cutters are used to cut semicircular woodruff keyseats but they work okay for tee slotting and other slotting jobs. (more…)

Or, based on the picture, maybe this post should be titled Flashlights In Space! Now I like flashlights as much as — or probably way more than — the average Toolmonger, but the mPower Emergency Illuminator that I recently saw on Gizmodo is a bit much even for me. Porsche Studios designed it, and mPower, a wholly-owned consumer products division of mPhase Technologies, uses its parent company’s AlwaysReady Smart NanoBattery technology to produce a two-tubed flashlight with two standard CR123 batteries in one tube, and an unactivated NanoBattery in the other. The NanoBattery side has a minimum 20-year shelf life with no power dissipation until activation. It’s to debut at CES in January, and should be available in March 2010 for a mere $250–$300. For that price you do get a “high power” LED  and an accessory USB connection for charging cell phones and PDAs.

Think there might be something better in the next 20 years?

AlwaysReady Smart Nanobattery [Manufacturer's Site]

It may look like just another angle grinder, and the motor spec certainly looks similar. But this tool’s designed with one purpose in mind: cutting through masonry in a nice straight line. Fitted with a 5″ segmented diamond blade, it’ll cut up to 1-1/4″ deep — perfect for trimming up concrete, brick, or tile.

(more…)

OK, so it’s actually called the Black & Decker V-3 Million Power Series rechargeable spotlight. But after a good 10 months of carting this sucker out for late-night grilling, hooking up trailer hitches in the dark, and finding a lost hitch pin in deep grass, we just call it the “vampire light.” It’s incredibly bright. In fact, it’s so bright it has a trigger guard to keep you from blinding yourself.

(more…)

I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure how these work, but they look like something from the end of Inspector Gadget’s forearm. They’re for precisely torquing large bolts in tight spaces, apparently mounting on the end of a long handle and accepting hydraulic feed and return lines. Unless I miss my guess, an internal pressure regulator determines how much torque is exerted.

If anyone’s ever used one of these, what are they like? The baddest torque tool I’ve ever used was a 3/4″-drive impact wrench, which is probably a pushover compared to these suckers.

(more…)

This might make the perfect gift for a brand-conscious tool friend this holiday season. This flashlight and knife kit (on sale at Costco this weekend) includes all the necessities: an aluminum barreled, xenon-bulbed two-AA light, a miniature AAA model, and an aluminum-bodied folding knife — and, of course, the Snap-on brand prominently on display.

(more…)

For those of you who have — or lust after (e.g., like Sean, see TM 1/29/07) — a Gerstner tool chest, you might be interested in the Gerstner PORTA-DRAWER™. It’s a flip-up handle that installs in the bottom drawer of most current and older-model Gerstner chests, and it turns the drawer into a portable tray for carrying your tools or other items.

The install-it-yourself accessory (which comes with mounting screws, a drilling template, and full instructions) stores permanently inside the drawer when in its down position, and then can hinge up to become a handle, making the drawer a tool tray. When it’s in the up position, small slots in the side brackets help to center the handle and keep the drawer level. And it’s only $29.95, which, considering the price of Gerstner chests, is a real bargain.

PORTA-DRAWER™ [Manufacturer's Site]

Imagine bending the stock of your carpenter’s square so that the tongue sat flat on the workpiece while you held it square to the edge. Now imagine going to the hardware store to buy a new square because you wrecked your old one by bending it. If you had a flexible Japanese square from Lee Valley you wouldn’t be giving your imagination such a workout.

The 3-1/3 oz. stainless steel square is thick and rigid at the corner, but it quickly tapers to a thin and flexible beveled profile on the 20-1/2″ stock and 10-1/2″ tongue. Lee Valley claims it’s square to within 0.1 mm in 100 mm. One side of the square is graduated in inches and the other metric; both sides have numbers etched and filled black.

To buy the Japanese square sold at Lee Valley you’ll pay $33 before shipping. The Japan Woodworker also has a similar, but smaller, square they sell for $40.

Japanese Square [Lee Valley]
Japanese Square [Japan Wodworker]

The FISKARS® model 0232 Multi-Snip, with its stainless steel blades (serrated on one side, as shown above, to help hold items), easily cuts a variety of materials in the shop, home, and garden including cable, cloth, carpet, cardboard, leather, linoleum, branches, “and more.” I have also found it also does a great job opening those sealed !*%@# clamshell packages that enclose so many products. The joint tension is adjustable, the molded handles are spring-loaded, and the blades can lock closed until you pull the orange-tipped thumb-release lever. All in all, it’s a very handy and small-sized snip that will only cost you around $10.

Fiskars, by the way, is celebrating their 360th anniversary.

Fiskars [Corporate Site]
Fiskars Multi-Snip Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Street Pricing [Google Products]