We all like to customize our cribs, but in some dorm rooms, apartments, and offices you’re not allowed to mar the walls, or maybe your significant other doesn’t like holes in the wall.  I just went through the hassle of patching all the nail holes in my bedroom, so I can kindof understand why some people get OCD about it.  3M comes to the rescue with a line of hangers that promise up to 7.5lbs of holding power — more importantly, they’re entirely removable and won’t mar your wall.

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I must love buckets — they’re all over my home, shop, and garden — but the ones missing their handles cut into my hand when fully loaded, and the new ones can be a pain to open.  Fortunately Prazi makes the 4-in-1 Bucket tool;  it can serve as a replacement handle, and it’ll also help you pry off those stubborn lids.

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If you hate caulking as much as I do, check out the Prazi Drill Mate. Hook it up to your 3/8″ corded or cordless drill and it’ll dump a tube of adhesive in about fifteen seconds on high speed, or you can ease off the trigger and dispense the adhesive as slow as you want.  If you want to stop in a hurry, just pull the quick-release switch to instantly release the pressure on the tube.

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If it’s good enough for a nuclear power plant it must be good enough for you.  3M designed its Performance Plus Duct Tape to meet the low leechable-halogen-and-sulfur requirements of nuclear power plants.  What does this mean to you?  Besides sounding cool, not much — but the tape has other advantages as well.

You can use the tape permanently or temporarily either indoor or out and for temperatures up to 200°F.  The tape removes cleanly from most opaque surfaces for up to six months, and it’s UV and sunlight resistant up to one year, which means the backing won’t deteriorate or delaminate.  The surface is also writable if you need to mark or label it.

3M uses polyethylene film over cloth scrim for the waterproof backing and a mixture of natural and synthetic rubber for the adhesive.  You can purchase the tape in slate blue or red.   A 60-yard roll of nuclear-grade duct tape will run you about $15.

Nuclear-Grade Duct Tape [3M]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

J-B Weld makes for some pretty entertaining conversation. Without fail, some will insist on its inherent evil while others sing its praises. With something this elemental there’s no middle ground.

I’ve never used the stuff before, but since it falls into the epoxy/superglue category I’ll admit that I lean towards the pro-JB Weld crowd. It looks like pretty cool stuff.  I see pictures of its overuse, like with other epoxy resins, for everything but curing cancer — so I get the feeling it can’t be all bad.

How does the Toolmonger readership stand on the hotly debated J-B Weld issue? Is it goop from the heavens or just another way to do a project incorrectly? Let us know in comments.

J-B Weld [Website]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

No matter how carefully you mask off an area, sometimes a little paint will still bleed under the tape and leave a less-than-crisp edge.  Shuretape Technologies claims that if you use their Frog Tape instead of other masking tapes you’ll get crisp, clean lines every time.

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We love super glue’s fast-drying stick-damn-near-anything-together rep.  But we’re less than thrilled about its brittle nature.  Gorilla’s new super glue incorporates tiny rubber particles to make the dried glue slightly flexible — rendering it more impact resistant than the normal stuff.  It’s much thicker, too, so it doesn’t run as easily.

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I love making tile-top projects.  However I’m pretty miserable at making grout correctly.  Maybe I don’t measure right, or I mix at the wrong intervals, but it always seems to go south by the time I’m through — always, that is, until I tried the SpectraLock grout system about two years ago.  Since then I’ve never had a problem with grouting tile, and it involves a great deal less swearing.  Here’s how it works.

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Winter takes its own sweet time coming to Texas, but even here “winterizing” happens — okay, maybe just a little.  Disappearing faucet covers are a big deal because nobody seems to know what the freezeless faucets are for, and window insulation film is a mythical substance.  But if you’ve got a little time and money, these window insulation kits from 3M can save you a bundle on your heating bills.

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Why should J-rollers get all the fun?  Although it looks like a toy race car, the SpeedRoller Pro from FastCap fits comfortably in your hand to roll on laminates with pressure-sensitive adhesives, such as edge-banding or veneers.

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Rummaging through the bins at Home Depot this weekend we came across Elmer’s Nano glue.  From reading the back of the product, it sounds the same as Elmer’s Ultimate glue — but since we couldn’t find a bottle of Ultimate to compare it to, we can’t say for sure.

The Elmer’s website gives the impression that it’s a foaming glue that foams less, which, if we’re not mistaken, was also the big selling point of Elmer’s Ultimate glue.  We then wondered if Nano was Ultimate in a different tube. The claims are almost the same, if memory serves, so it’s possible this is just marketing — or it could really be a different product.

Is this just another foaming glue, or is it the hottest new thing in bubbly adhesives?  Let us know in comments.

Nano Glue [Elmer's]

Try to rip a long piece of tape from that crappy little dispenser that comes with a roll of Scotch tape and you’ll realize why you use a tape gun with packing tape. Harbor Freight sells a cheap solution to your taping woes — a micro tape gun for standard tape rolls.

This compact (2-3/4″x 1-1/4″x 4-1/4″) tape gun uses tape rolls with the 1″ diameter hole in the center. It can accommodate tape rolls up to 3/4″ wide and 2-3/4″ in diameter.

Is this a tool or just a toy? We’re not sure, but for only $2 it might be worth a try next time you hit your local Harbor Freight.

Micro Tape Gun [Harbor Freight]

The Snozzle cove-base adhesive nozzle attaches to your cove-base applicator — or “caulk gun” to the layman. It saves you time by covering more surface area in one pass, and it evenly distributes the glue for a well-bonded installation.

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Whenever you use superglue or any cyanoacrylate-based adhesive you’re going to get some on you.  And after you’ve gently or not-so-gently pried your fingers apart you’re left with that peculiar sensation that you’ve just removed your fingerprints to further your cat burglary career. If you don’t mind absorbing toxic chemicals you can soften the glue with solvents like acetone — or you can try Glue-B-Gone, a soap-bar-sized porous stone that gently removes the glue and fused skin from your hands.

Street pricing is around $5.

Glue-B-Gone [Great Planes]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

At some point, drilling shelf-pin holes became rocket science. You’d think most woodworkers would have enough skill to lay out a line of equally spaced holes, but it seems everybody has a trick or a new product to save us from our shortcomings. To give us yet another way of laying out equally spaced holes, FastCap created their layout tape.

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Joe’s Sticky Stuff is exactly what it sounds like — it’s sticky, and as anyone can plainly see it’s a physical object in the universe we occupy, so it does indeed qualify as stuff.  It adheres very aggressively to materials such as paper, laminated plastics, plastic sheeting, and certain wallpapers, but it differs from other sticky stuff because you can remove it easily just by pulling on it the right way.  Though it’s more commonly known as pressure-sensitive adhesive, we have to go with Joe on this one and say Sticky Stuff has a better ring to it.

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Double-stick tape can be a third hand when you’re doing assembly projects. While it holds the pieces, you can work on creating a permanent attachment. 3M’s VHB tapes comes in a variety of double stick flavors, and they can help you out as a third hand — what makes ‘em cool, though, is the bond is so strong on VHB tapes, you may not need anything else

VHB stands for “Very High Bond.” You use it in applications where other attachment methods could distort or damage surfaces, and it’s especially suited for attaching to metal and glass. For instance, people stick on their car tags and rearview mirrors with VHB tape. It can create a strong bond in a small area without using hardware. VHB also holds things together in the construction of outdoor signs, appliances, and windows.

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