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.

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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]

As I mentioned recently in my Kitchen Tool Drawer post, the Easydriver is back (”and it’s IMPROVED”). The $29.95 Easydriver gift set (shown on the left in the picture) has the Easydriver ball with three shaft lengths (3″, 5-½”, and 7″), the Mini-Easydriver ball (shown in use on the right in the above picture) with 3-¼” shaft, and six standard ¼” hex bits (two #1 Phillips, two 3/16″ slotted, one #2 Phillips, and one ¼” slotted). As with most other standard ¼” hex bit holders, I’m assuming you can use these without bits as ¼” nut drivers. Each ball is a ratchet driver that you simply flip over to reverse the action. The tools are American made and have a lifetime warranty.

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Unused hog rings kinda look like rounded staples. When you squeeze them with hog ringer pliers they form a ring capturing whatever happens to be in the center. They’re used in all sorts of applications, like fencing, landscaping, mattress and automobile seat construction, and even holding sausage casings closed.

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The Black & Decker Mastercart (model 17330605) is a slightly redesigned version of the Keter Mastercart that I bought several years ago at either Kmart or Walmart (mostly different colored trim: mine is gray, and the B&D’s is orange). Mine has held up well, although I have not abused it much: it mainly holds the tools, cords, wires, and so on that I use when working on computers or electronics around the house. The B&D is 18″ × 10.6″ × 24.4″ with a fold-down handle. The upper tool box, which detaches from the lower tool box, has a removable organizer on its front and two lidded compartments on its top. Both the upper and lower boxes have removable trays.

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I don’t know if it’s a regional, cultural, generational, or whatever thing, but when I was growing up there was always one drawer in the kitchen that had tools in it — things like a small hammer, regular pliers, a screwdriver or two, a tape measure, and a random collection of fasteners including nails, screws, and rubber bands. The kitchen tool drawer in my grandmother’s house had this neat little hammer with a handle that unscrewed to reveal a set of nested screwdrivers (still available here). I don’t know how useful it was, but it sure piqued my early Toolmonger brain.

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While leafing through my “Ideas for TM Posts” file, I found a page I had cut from the Feb. 2009 issue of Popular Mechanics that mentioned the Klenk DA86450 Select-A-Bit™. It’s a ratcheting screwdriver with a 4:1 gearing produced by holding the nose piece (which causes the bit to turn four times for each single turn of the handle). The 4:1 option is for driving screws and nuts in low-torque applications; the 1:1 ratio is recommended for higher-torque.

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The Cole-Bar Hammer is a new multi-purpose tool with a ratchet that locks at any angle between 0° and 180°. This means the hammer can be opened into a full crow bar, used as a square, or used as an angle tool. In addition, the ratchet section is removable for use as a socket wrench, or cat’s paw. Apparently not yet in production — at least I could not find anything on the web — the saw’s designer named it in honor of his son who passed away in an accident not long after they had invented it. A video of the tool in use is available on the web site. This tool is one of those in the Cool Tools Inventor’s Challenge to be aired Thanksgiving weekend — could be a good thing to watch, although I tend to avoid Cool Tools because the host, Chris Grundy, is just a little too intense for me.

Would you want one of these multifunction hammers? How much would you be willing to pay? Let us know in comments.

Cole-Bar Hammer [Manufacturer's Site]

Many of Bridge City Tool Work’s tools make it into our Tool Pr0n category, but their limited edition CT-16 palm brace has got to be one of the most frivolous offerings since the $100 plumb bob.

Bridge City Tool Works crafts the brace from steel, stainless-steel, and aluminum and then chromes the outer chuck, swing handle, and knob in black, a look which they call “stunningly beautiful.”  The handle of the 8-1/2″ inch long brace swings in a 4-1/2″ circle around the bit and accepts 1/4″ hex shank bits in its chuck.

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You may not see news like this on Reuters or CNN, but we love reading about the latest tool releases — like these new ratchets from Stanley Proto. In 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ sizes, these ratchets are narrower than Proto’s previous offerings so you can cram ‘em into tighter spaces. They’re also quick release; just push the button on the back to free the socket.

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This is a man with his priorities in order. Reader Lowside has finally figured out what to do with all that wasted space behind the garage door.

As far as I can tell, this solves two problems. The first is he never has to try to cram them back into a molded plastic container — a big plus in our book. The other is he gets to practice tossing them back onto the rack and looking casual. That way when his buddies come by he can look wicked cool with his mad wrench-throwing skills.

Warning: you might want to hold off practicing the wrench-toss maneuver until the other half is out of the house. Don’t ask how we know.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

Spline wrenches are cool because you can turn a variety of different fastener heads such as hex, partially rounded hex, 12pt, square, external Torx, and yes, even spline heads, with one wrench.  If you’re willing to give up the ratcheting feature in the Stanley Proto and SK spline wrenches, you can get a set of seven Craftsman combo open end/box spline wrenches from Sears for under $20.

Craftsman angles the wrench heads by 15° to save your knuckles and they reinforce the open end so the wrench doesn’t deform under high torque, rounding the head. The set normally includes 5/16″, 3/8″, 7/16″, 1/2″, 9/16″, and 11/16″ wrenches, but to be nice Sears is throwing in a 5/8″ wrench and a storage tray.

Universal Wrench Set [Sears]

Part of the fun of doing TM posts is the discovery of tools I’d never seen or used. The Ideal 9-in-1 Ratch-A-Nut Screwdriver is one such beast. It’s a ratcheting screwdriver with 1/4″ and 3/16″ slotted bits, #1 and #2 Phillips bits, 1/4″, 5/16″, and 7/16″ nutdrivers on one end, plus a ratcheting wire nut wrench on the back end that can handle a variety of wire connectors. The typical price runs around $19, but True Value has it for a bit over $9.

Ratch-A-Nut [Manufacturer's Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Ratch-A-Nut Via Amazon [What’s This?]

The CobraHead® Weeder and Cultivator (modestly called “The Best Tool In Earth®”) can apparently do almost everything “with ease”: weeding, cultivating, scalping (?), edging, digging, furrowing, planting, transplanting, de-thatching, and harvesting. Its “steel fingernail®” blade works in almost any soil, and is easily used by either the left or the right hand.

It comes in two sizes: the short handle for $25, and the long handle (48″, 54″, or 60″) for $60. Prices include shipping to the USA or Canada.

It certainly sounds good, and all the reviews on Amazon are positive. Have any Toolmongers used the CobraHead? What’s your impression?

CobraHead [Manufacturer's Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
CobraHead Via Amazon [What’s This?]

I keep a couple of crappy dead blow hammers around the shop, but this new kit from S-K blows ‘em away. The hammer features a non-slip “flanged-butt” design — stop snickering, it’s just bigger at the bottom so you don’t accidentally throw the hammer. And the kit includes eight color-coded screw-on tips in various hardnesses.

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We’ve seen this before: Craftsman will etch names, slogans or whatever else on the side of each piece for a super-customized set of special “heirloom” tools. You know, like M&Ms, but a crap-ton more expensive. But every time I see these, I get a different vibe. Sometimes I love the idea, and sometimes not so much.

Admittedly, I could write “now quit borrowing mine, jackhole!” on the wrenches, leaving my future kids to wonder what uncle Sean meant by that when they inherit the tools 40 years from now. But then again, you could snag another whole plain-Jane kit for the difference in price. (So theoretically at least, the jackholes could steal a set.)

I’d risk a quarter on one thing, though: I bet sales of these skyrocket around the holidays. What do you think? Do you own any? Do you wish you did?

Street pricing runs around $200.

Personalized 187 pc. Tool Set [Craftsman]

Are these awesome pry bars? I don’t own these, but I’m gonna guess not. So if you’re prying the tops off nuclear reactors or something, this one might be more your speed. But if you’re just looking for a way to keep your screwdrivers from ending up bent or otherwise molested, they sound pretty great (considering the price).

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