We asked for demolition pics a while back, and TM reader and photo pool member kayacabana provided us with some. Here you can see him in the midst of tearing up flooring.
Yes, he’s not wearing the proper clothing and safety gear for the job. Yes, he’s going to catch hell in comments for it. But you have to give him props for a) getting his ass out to do the work even when it was “hot as hell in Tucson,” and b) for getting the job done with “a HF air scraper with an underpowered PC compressor.” He says the low-buck gear “worked well and made a hell of a mess.”
Nice.
By the way, Toolmonger’s photo pool is quickly approaching the 1,000 photo mark. If you haven’t taken the time to browse through ‘em — and share your own — now’s as good a time as any. There really aren’t any rules there. Just post anything a Toolmonger would enjoy seeing: unboxing pics of your new tool, photos of your latest project, or a quick pic of a funky unidentified tool you saw at the flea market. We’re game. We’re Toolmongers!
After lots of internal wrangling, Stanley recently launched a public site dedicated entirely to the FuBar — everyone’s favorite tools for straigtening studs and breaking s#!%. In fact, with the release of this site — and the FuBar III — Stanley has finally embraced the FuBar’s rightful position as King Of Breaking S#!%: the site lets you select an item, then watch four trash-talking workers break it. Really.
(And when you see “King Of Breaking S#!%” on Stanley products packaging a few years from now, remember you heard it here first.)
Busting up a boulder in your back yard isn’t any fun with a pneumatic hammer. But blowing it up? Sweet. Ezebreak’s Micro-Blaster II employs small powder-filled cartridges to break up smaller rock and concrete bits — without pissing off the neighbors or involving federal authorities. You don’t even need a license to use it!
Ok, so it’s not meant to be deadly, but it sure looks that way to us. This drill employs microwaves to drill through concrete, stone – and even glass without breaking it. And it produces no dust or noise, either. Of course, stray microwaves can effectively cook your internal organs if you’re not paying attention, so, um, pay attention.
Here’s another tool for breaking s#@! from the firefighters’ playbook. It’s called the Rabbit Tool by most, although it’s officially the Hydra-Ram. Whereas many of the other fire and rescue tools we’ve featured require some pretty violent swinging force — or a powerful pneumatic or hydraulic power source — to get the job done, the Rabbit Tool just needs one guy squeezing the handle and the tool together.
Thanks to MSA Safety Works and their line of NFL hard hats, you can now break s#!$, support for your favorite football team, and protect your melon all at the same time! These hard hats meet industry standards and (most importantly) feature bright, colorful logos that you can proudly wear in public. Not only do they look good, but these hats are said to be comfortable enough to wear through an entire game project.
Dubbed the KATool by manufacturer Council, its “KA” supposedly stands for Kwik Access — but it could just as easily be Kick Ass. We hear that firefighters love this tool because it’s a classic fast attack tool, allowing you to tear up a wall quickly to check for fire extension, cut wires, clear doors, etc. And we hear they particularly like like the fact that it’s light enough to carry into a fire along with all their other gear.
It’s a pry bar. It’s a nail puller. It’s a hammer. It’s a pick. It’s yet another demolition multi-tool with a kick-ass name: the Demo Dawg. Designed by a remodeler to simplify many of his back-breaking tasks, the Demo Dawg helps remove drywall, tear up flooring and roofing, tear out cabinets, and even relocate a landscape planting.
Don’t let getting hit in the head by flying debris stop your demolition fun — especially when you can pick up this hard hat is from Mfasco for under $4. Is it the best hard hat around? We doubt it. But every bit of damage this cheap-ass hat soaks up is damage you won’t take to the head.
The Radians #300 Safety Hard Hat features a snap adjustment and meets ANSI Z89.1-1997, Type 1, Class E g and C standards for helmets. And it rings up at $3.92 — which means you have no excuse for not owning one.
Plus, if nothing else you could wear it with a suit and be Max Zorin for halloween.
The AMPCO 7920 German-type sledge hammer will run you $900 on Amazon. Believe it or not, this 23.79 pound — when you pay almost $40 a pound you want to be accurate – German-type sledge serves a practical purpose. Its non-sparking, non-magnetic, corrosion-resistant, beryllium free head meets OSHA and NFPA requirements for use in hazardous, flammable, or combustible environment. So you can break s#!$ just about anywhere.
If that isn’t enough to make you run out and buy one right now, AMPCO’s offers a lifetime warranty. (They don’t specify whether that lifetime is the tools or yours, though. We hear toxic waste can sting.)
Don’t forget to read the reviews on Amazon as you rush to purchase this sledge — they’re quite amusing.
Trenches are man-eating cave-in monsters waiting for the right moment to spring their collapsing trap, so the last thing you want to do is anger one by walking in with a vibrating soil compactor. That’s why smart construction workers drive the compactor in by remote control.
Like Stephen said in a recent Dealmonger post, firefighters are the kings of breaking s#!$. Here’s another tool from their get-through-the-wall-fast-or-die arsenal: the T-N-T tool. It’s a true five-in-one multi-tool — an axe, a sledge hammer, a pry bar, a ram, and a D-handled pull hook.
Ever wonder how firefighters bust through interior walls so quickly to save kids hiding in the closet? Watch and learn: at Maker Faire Austin last weekend we held a competition to see who could get through three interior walls first armed with nothing but Stanley’s on-shelves-in-January FuBar III.
Our competitors: Megan Miller (of PopSci Future Girl fame) and her PopSci cohort Nick Mann.
The rules: tear through the three identical interior walls as quickly as possible with nothing but the FuBar III. Remove all studs. To stop the clock and claim victory, smash and shatter a pumpkin frozen in liquid nitrogen by Theo Gray, PopSci’s resident Mr. Wizard and author of their monthly Gray Matter column.
Anyone who’s seen The Terminator knows that robots are out to get us. Need further proof that Skynet is nigh? The Swedish company Brokk offers a line of compact demo-bots for all sorts of dangerous demolition jobs. They’re popular in the nuclear power industry where radioactive contamination is an, um, issue. These particular models are remotely operated via a wired or wireless control box – to limit the operator’s exposure to dangerous environments and to prevent fatigue from vibration — but it’s just a short step to sending them out to do your demo work all by themselves.
Ingersoll-Rand’s workhorse rock drill is mean. It can drill a 2″ wide hole up to 18” deep into solid rock — perfect for when the s#!$ you need to break is made of stone. And just think how cool you’ll look weilding it!
“Better get the Jaws of Life,” is not a phrase that you want to hear after you wreck your car. But thankfully for you, your local emergency crews have the foresight to own Hurst’s Jaws of Life — which has snatched people from the jaws of death for over three decades. Now Hurst is introducing an improved combination spreader/cutter version: the X-Tractor C.
The ultimate way to break s$#! is to blow it up, and the folks over at Gerber offer a multi-tool designed especially for the trained demolition techicians whose job we all covet. The Gerber Multi-Plier 600 Demolition Explosive Technician Tool is the only multi-tool certified for explosive ordinance disposal units and follows U.S. miltary specifications.
The tool includes a non-reflective black coating, a blasting cap crimper, and a universal saw coupler with remGritT saw. You also get a standard cross point screwdriver, large, meduim, and small flat- blade screwdrivers, a file, a bottle opener, a lanyard, and a nice ballistic nylon sheath.
And right now you can pick one up from Snapberry for just $79.05 with $8 shipping.
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