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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Looking at a printed circuit board (PCB), ever wonder how they bend every one of those resistor leads perfectly every time? Depending on how many PCB’s are in a production run, you’d use different tools.  For a run of one or two boards, you could always try a pair of pliers and a keen eye, or you could use a plastic lead former. If you’re running a ton of boards at once, a better solution would be a lead forming machine from a company like PEI.

Slots for radial lead resistors run along the length of the high impact ABS plastic former. Each slot is .05″ longer than the next and has radiused edges to make perfect bends without stressing the leads. It can be used to bend the leads of 1/2 watt resistors, 1/4 watt resistors, and diodes.

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Want to get the kids involved in handiwork but not ready to hand over your power drill to a first-grader? Arizona Tools offers a cool gift idea for kids aged around 6-10: Allied’s Junior Cruiser Assortment Tool Set. Aside from giving them a chance to spend time with Dad or Mom or Grandpa Joe, it goes a long way toward developing dexterity and a sense of independence (read: when they’re thirty they won’t still be calling you to help them put air in a tire).

The kit is made with heat-treated, likely inexpensive materials (the whole set retails for under $30) including a flashlight (batteries not included), tire gauge, Phillips and flathead screwdrivers, 18 hex keys (SAE/Metric with holders), a 10′ tape measure, 6″ slip joint pliers, a 1/4″ spinner handle, and 20 1/4″ drive sockets of various SAE and metric sizes. Customer reviews at Arizona Tools are positive, though many folks wish that it included a hammer. Then again, when you’re eight, everything’s a hammer.

Allied Junior Cruiser Assortment Tool Set [Arizona Tools]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Allied Junior Tool Sets Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Know what else the holidays entail? Checking out all the new gimmicky tools that magically arrive just in time to become gifts. Kidding aside, not all “stocking-stuffer-esque” tools are junk. Each year we come across a few that’ll serve a useful purpose all year long — and a few that’ll end up in the trash by Valentine’s Day.

So which bin does B&D’s new ReadyWrench fall in? First, let’s take a look at the basics.

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Nailing up hidden gutter hangers can be a challenge. One reason they’re called “hidden” is they are fastened to the fascia under the lip of the shingles and inside the gutter where there ain’t much room to swing a hammer. To solve this problem, Malco’s Gutter Nail Driver both holds the nail and transfers the striking surface outside the gutter where you can get a good swing. (more…)

One of my uncles loves to tell the tale of how he acquired much of his impressive collection of fine Snap-On tools and the four-foot-wide roll cab they came in. As he tells it, back in the sixties he purchased the full cab from a dealer who was going out of business, and had somehow wound up with the full chest, no key, and apparently no idea about the value of its contents. Price? $200. He bought the cab, dragged it home, popped it open with one of the few tools he owned (a lock pick set from working with a towing company), and was the proud owner of a fully stocked dealership tool set at about a 97% discount.

Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but he does use a pick set to open his tool box, claiming he’s nostalgic and never saw the point of getting it re-keyed. Picks are useful little devices, if you can get a set that isn’t from a shady dealer. Look for stainless steel pieces with good metal handles, which should cost around $30, and you usually won’t go wrong. Johnny Law may frown upon owners, but in the right circumstances, they can save some serious headaches. Practitioners claim that lock picking is as much an art as welding, so maybe it’ll morph into a hobby as well as a practical skill.

LAB 11-piece Mini Pick Set [Lock Picks by Brockhage]
Clear Practice Locks [Lock Picks by Brockhage]
Professional Picking Tools [Lock Pick Shop]

Constant-tension hose clamps are fast becoming ubiquitous on mass-produced cars, courtesy of their stone-cold reliability and automatic adjustment. Worm gear and T-bolt hose clamps should be re-torqued after installation with the hoses hot, since the clamping force squeezes rubber out from underneath the band (a tendency called cold creep), but constant-tension clamps keep themselves properly adjusted. They are, however, one of a mechanic’s knuckles’ worst enemies, and very difficult to detach without the right tools. Additionally, factory installations aren’t always the easiest to remove, which is where flexible hose clamp pliers come in.

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Why use a brass pin punch? Well, for one brass doesn’t spark, so if you ever need to drive out a pin in a flammable environment, you’d probably want one. Secondly, they are less likely to leave a mark on steel surfaces.

This brass pin punch set by Solid includes a 6″ center punch and pin punches sized 3/32″ x 4-1/4″, 1/8″ x 4-3/4″, 5/32″ x 5″, 3/16″ x 5-1/4″ and 1/4″ x 5-3/4″.  It runs about $26 shipped.

Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Not many screws are long enough to merit a 1:4 gearing to help tighten them more quickly, but the little buggers get frustrating fast if they are. This is the Skew Products Fastdriver, a screwdriver with a little (extra) twist. There’s a gear set in the body which turns every handle rotation into four shaft rotations. If you need more torque, the gearbox can be disengaged for normal 1:1 operation. It comes with two Phillips and two slot drivers and is compatible with 1/4″ hex inserts, the same type you’ll find in just about any interchangeable-head screwdriver, so this should work with your existing collection.

The Fastdriver’s pretty cheap, too — just $12 before shipping from SJ Discount Tools. I’d imagine it’s roughly as fast as a ratcheting screwdriver, but a little easier to use — no rapid back-and-forth nonsense making the tip slip out of the screw head.

Fastdriver [SJ Discount Tools]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Besides shop uses like examining sharpened edges and getting a closer look at that splinter in your finger (TM 7/03/09 post), I think small handheld microscopes are just plain cool. The Celestron 44306 is a Handheld Digital and Optical Microscope, with adjustable brightness LED illumination, a 20X eyepiece for optical viewing (4X to 8X on the LOW setting; 50X on the HIGH setting) and a USB 2.0mp digital camera for snapshots and video on your computer (20X to 40X on the LOW setting; 200X on the HIGH setting). It’s 2″ × 1.25″ × 3.5″, weighs 2 oz, and includes a USB cable and ArcSoft Photo software. The user has to supply two AAA batteries for the LED.

There are lots of fun things to look at with the microscope, like fountain pen writing on an index card, a cat whisker — it fell off, honest — , coins, wood grain, random garage bugs…

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