I spotted this great deal over on Amazon: a set of four Freud Forstner bits in 1/4″, 1/2″, 3/4″, and 1″ diameters, with a lifetime warranty, for $16. I purchased some Forstner bits for a project a while back when I really should have bought spade bits — if you’ve ever used a Forstner bit in a regular hand drill, you know it takes a lot of force to push them into the material you’re cutting. But they work great in a drill press, especially for making pocket, angled, or overlapping holes.

Freud [Corporate Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What's This?]

As if you weren’t already getting great bang-for-your-buck from your Ryobi tools — now they’re offering reconditioned tools through their official web distributor, at about 30% off retail prices. I’ve purchased a few items from them, and they were all in like-new condition. The only thing distinguishing these from brand-new is the “RECON” branding somewhere on the tool. They even carry a one year warranty.

If you have the One+ system, you can pick up some very nice additions for cheap, like the 18V angle grinder for $28 — nice!

Reconditioned Ryobi Tools [Gardner Inc.]

Whether you’re an aircraft mechanic, auto mechanic, welder, or DIYer, you’ll eventually need to grind or sand some metal. But what happens when your angle grinder doesn’t offer the finesse you need for a small, intricate job? What happens when you need to get into a hard-to-reach area? Here’s a solution that takes advantage of a tool you already have — 3M’s Roloc drill-mounted grinding/sanding/finishing system.

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With the Bitz Driver bit caddy, you no longer need to go insane wondering where the hell you just put that bit you were using. Peel the protective cover from its adhesive back and slap this baby on your drill, and never waste time searching for bits again. Instead, they’ll be sitting in one of the four holes of the driver caddy, ready to go.

At a buck seventy-five, you only have your insanity to lose.

Bitz Driver Bit Caddy [McFeely's]

If you need to drill a hole in steel, you’re going to want a drill press. The power, the stability, and the accuracy will allow you to bore your way through small or narrow pieces of stock. But what do you do when you need precise holes in a large piece of plate steel that you can’t take to the drill press? You need to take the press to the steel. Milwaukee’s magnetic drill press lets you do just that.

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If you ever picked up one of those 100-piece-or-more security bit sets, you’ve probably run across this bit pattern and wondered, What type of screw does this fit? Browsing the Irwin site, I found the answer: Torq-Set — also know as Tee+Cross and offset cruciform. Apparently our friends in the aviation business see these all the time.

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Congratulations, everyone! Our tools now come equipped with laser beams — we’re officially in the future. Many drill presses, circ-saws, miter saws, and even some wacky hand tools now feature lasers for precision work. It seems manufacturers are anxious to put as many laser beams on their products as possible. I’m sure we’ll see a hammer that shines a laser on the head of a nail by year’s end. But do these high-tech beams of light really help?

I recently acquired a jigsaw that had a laser on it. I thought is was a bit weird, since lasers shoot straight and jigsaws are meant to cut curves — but I tried it out. Although it seemed to work at first, I wound up watching the laser instead of the blade, and my cut started to wander.

My Ryobi drill press also sports a laser. Although the laser crosshairs can be useful, I have to realign it almost every time I use the darn thing. On the other hand, I used to cut granite commercially on a large wet-saw, and my cuts would’ve been horrible had I not had a laser to align them.

So, are laser alignments hot or not? Do you have a tool with a laser? Which one? Do you use the laser, or does it just get in the way? Let us know in comments!

Saws With Lasers [Google Products]
Drills With Lasers [Google Products]

Last week we wrote about The Screw Up, but the “As Seen On TV” vibe it emanated soured the post. After looking around for a better option, we found the Wolfcraft hook driver. The hook driver can drive almost any kind of hook, including screw hooks, eyelet screws, and L-hooks.

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Enlarging a hole can present a tricky problem, whether it’s an existing hole that needs enlarging, or somebody made an “oops” and used the wrong size hole saw. How do you center the hole saw at the same location and keep it from wandering? This question drove the engineers at Starrett to develop the Oops Arbor.

As long as the new hole is 3/16″ larger than the old hole, you can use the Oops Arbor to pilot the larger hole saw with a second hole saw the size of the original hole. The Oops Arbor’s 1/4″ shank replaces the normal pilot bit for most hole saw mandrels and accepts both 1/2″ and 5/8″ threaded cutters.

You can get the Oops Arbor for as little as $6.  What’s it worth to be the hero next time somebody makes an Oops?

Oops Arbor [Starret]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What's This?]

To install screw hooks, you have to tediously screw them in by hand and finish with a pair of pliers when that gets too hard. So how can a horribly named product from an ambiguously named company make your life easier? Sophron Marketing’s The Screw Up features magnetic sockets that hold the hook in line with your shank. You can even thread The Screw Up into an extension pole, to install hooks in places where you previously had to use a ladder.

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Who needs a Rotozip, when your cordless drill will work just as well? Grizzly’s Beaver saw-drill can cut a starting hole with its tip and rip through material with its tooth-covered shank. Chuck this bit up into any drill with a 1/4″ chuck or larger, and you’re ready to cut drywall, paneling, and a slew of other materials

For drilling the initial pilot hole, the first 5/8″ of the Beaver saw-drill’s tip resembles a common, 135°, split-point drill bit. The saw portion — with 90 sharp, side-cutting teeth — makes up the next 1-3/4″. For faster cutting and longer life, both the drilling and cutting portions are precision-ground and coated with titanium nitride. Grizzly makes the entire bit from M2 high-speed steel.

Made in USA, the Beaver saw drill will only run you $4 at Amazon — a heck of a lot cheaper than a Rotozip, and one less power tool to lug around.

Beaver Saw-Drill [Grizzly]
Via Amazon [What's This?]

Setting router bits to the correct height takes patience and plenty of test scrap pieces. To aid in this process, Sommerfeld Tools recently released two Easy-Set (EZSET) gauges: a red one with eight different Freud profiles, and a yellow version with eight different Sommerfeld profiles.

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How do you make tambour doors — you know, the rolling doors in roll-top desks and appliance garages?  You could glue the slats to a cloth backing, then fish a wire through every slat to hold the tambour door together, or you could use Amana’s new bit set. With Lonnie Bird’s three carbide-tipped tambour/appliance garage door bits, you can create uniquely shaped slats that interlock.

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Whiteside Machine combines a flush trim bit and a template bit into one router bit, saving you money, time, and confusion. The two ball bearings — one on the tip and one on the shank — allow you to use this bit for cutting out templates and patterns, as well as for flush-trimming laminates and edgings.

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Amazon is selling this 38-piece impact-ready accessory set for $24 — you’ll have to throw something else in your cart to get the free shipping. The set includes eight #2 Phillips 1″ insert bits, eight #2 Phillips 1″ reduced-diameter insert bits for drywall, five #2 Phillips 2″ black oxide power bits, eight #2 Phillips 1″ double-ended bit tips, a 1/4″ nut driver, a 5/16″ nut driver, a 3/8″ socket adapter, a pivoting bit tip holder, and a 3″ stainless steel bit tip holder with a hog ring. You also get 3/8″ drive sockets in a variety of depths — 9/16″, 3/8″, 7/16″, and 1/2″ deep.

Impact Driver Set [DeWalt]
Via Amazon [What's This?]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

The unusual-looking profile of Megapro’s DoubleLok bits allows them to engage the locking mechanism in quick-change chucks, like those found on the pocket lithium screwdrivers that’re becoming so popular. The bits also feature a spring-loaded ball in the middle, which holds them into manual screwdrivers that take regular double-ended bits.

Here’s the great part: Megapro makes a whole pile of different bits, from the full gamut of straight and Phillips sizes, to tamper-resistant Torx and spanner bits, to specialty stuff like Schrader valve core removers and clutch bits. Curiously, not all of them feature the DoubleLoc design. Still, if you’ve been hunting for a double-ended security Torx bit to complete your portable toolkit, give Megapro a look.

Megapro [Corporate Site]
Megapro Products [Grainger]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Meet the new 18V 1/2″ LXT lithium-ion hammer drill/driver kit from Makita. I know, I want one too. This baby’s four-pole torque motor delivers up to 560 in-lbs of torque, which is a lot of power considering the Makita is only 9-7/8″ in length and 4.9 lbs. It drives in three speeds, and with Makita’s shift-lock system you can quickly shift it from hammer into driver mode.

The lithum-ion battery gives the tool a longer running time with 5x lower self-discharge; the battery also sports 16 firm-holding contact terminals for constant high-power output. The fan-cooled charger can charge the battery in 45 minutes and has three active controls for current, heat, and voltage, to optimize the charging capacity of the battery.

The tool comes in a carrying case and includes two batteries, a charger, screwdriver bits, and Makita’s standard three-year warranty on the tool and one year on the battery. The lowest price I found was $266 over at Tool Plus.

BHP451 [Makita]
Makita BHP451 Kit [Tool Plus]
Street Pricing [Google Products]