Way before electricity and power tools, woodworkers were drilling holes with hand-powered tools like the breast drill. Skipping over the obvious 7th-grade jokes, old-timers once reached for this drill to get a good start and a clean hole.
You own enough hammers to outfit a construction crew, so you really don’t need one more — except occasionally you might need a rubber mallet for an odd job. Instead of buying yet another hand tool, you might consider today’s featured Cheap-Ass Tool: the MalletHead.
The MalletHead turns your regular claw hammer into a rubber mallet — just slip one of three different density rubber heads over the head of the hammer. Use the soft red head for delicate jobs, the medium white head for woodworking, and the hard blue head for metals and stone.
The corporate site asks $10 plus $8 shipping and handling for a set of MalletHeads. Harbor Freight offers a coupon (expiring August 23) that discounts a set of MalletHeads to $10 — but notice this isn’t really a deal, since $10 is the retail price.
MalletHead [Corporate Site]
MalletHead [Harbor Freight]
A while back we mentioned the Gecko Grip level from Black and Decker. Though it’s a bit gimmicky I recently ran across one that had been gifted to a friend, and I got to see him put it through its paces. I found, to my surprise, that it does work as advertised.
The usual argument against the Gecko goes something like, “Who uses a level to hang a picture?” After seeing the Gecko in action I understand that it’s not the level that makes this a useful real-world setup — it’s the adjustable targets on a straightedge that happens to have a level on it.
I watched a 12-year-old align the level’s targets with the wall mount on the back of a picture, then take the Gecko over to the wall, hold it up and check that the bubble level was reasonably straight, and mark the surface with a pen. After mounting the hardware, they hung the picture, shifted it a bit here and there to correct for the room’s “alignment” — and they were done.
The whole thing took about a minute, and no one touched a tape measure or fussed over crookedness. The father also explained that it doubled as a household level and worked pretty well for it, too. He followed up with the remark that it was one of the better Christmas tools he’d ever received.
The lesson here: Not everything gimmicky has to be junk. In this case, the Gecko performs actual household tasks — and it not only performs its original purpose, but also substitutes for other more-expensive, no-gimmick tools that are taken more seriously.
What do you think? Once a gimmick, always trash? Or can some of these Christmas grabbers make life better, even in some small way, around the homestead? Let us know in comments.
Street pricing starts at $15.
Gecko Grip Level [Black & Decker]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]
Used to be when soldering the lead of a heat-sensitive component, you were supposed to clip on a heat sink to dissipate the heat away from the component. But with surface-mount components replacing through-hole components, the heat sink has been slowly moving to the back of the toolbox where tools go to retire. The tool hasn’t become obsolete yet, though — you can still find plenty of heat-sensitive specialty and hobbyist parts with leads.
This version from Miller is an example of a quality heat sink. The spring-loaded copper jaws efficiently absorb heat and move it away from the sensitive component, while the nickel plating ensures that solder won’t stick to the tool. To stop the heat from being efficiently transferred to your hand when you remove the heat sink, Miller coats the handles in soft plastic.
Unfortunately, I can’t find the Miller tool for sale, but for comparison I included links to inexpensive Radio Shack and Hexacon heat sinks that’ll probably get the job done for $2 to $7.
Heat Sink [Ripley-Miller]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Heat Sink [Radio Shack]
Via Amazon(B000PDOOXQ) [What’s This?] [What's This?]
We just never get tired of the good ole’ Colonel-Mustard-in-the-library pipe wrench — it’s a classic. Check out any movie with construction work going down and you’ll see one lying around somewhere. If you don’t have one already sitting at the back of the toolbox, Toolup.com is selling the 12″ RIDGID pipe wrench for only $20.87, which seems like the best deal around.
You can get by with a cheap pipe wrench, but when you’re stuffed into a crawlspace with nails and spiders all around you, the last thing you want is a wrench that slips. One thing we noticed while searching for a good price: you can find replacement parts for RIDGID wrenches easily, to keep your tool working for generations.
12″ RIDGID Pipe Wrench [Toolup.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Toolup.com is selling the Vise-Grip 20R chain wrench for $20, which is 10% off the regular price. When I have to unscrew something with limited or no gripping options, I never fail to reach for my Vise-Grip chain wrench, and I often use a pair. They work great for clamping odd pieces together when welding, and there’s no better jar opener, if you avoid smashing the glass by overtightening…
Vise-Grip Chain Wrench [Toolup.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]
Specialty tools are endless — pick some job that you know someone somewhere is going to have to do, and there’s a tool for it. If you need to remove institutional-grade glued-down carpet in the middle of the day at a school, or in the middle of the night in a maternity ward, you’ll probably want this quiet, glued-down-carpet puller.
The spring-loaded arm and adjustable magnetic pad give the MagSpring clamp its name, but fast clamping and one-handed operation set the clamp apart from other sliding bar clamps.
Get a saw cut right against the floor with an undercut saw. Designed for adding that extra space you need to slip flooring under door jambs, cabinets, and molding, this not-too-expensive specialized tool could save you lots of time.
Street pricing starts at $16.
Undercut Saw [Crain Tools]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
UniversalPart.com is selling the wonderfully tiny Wiha pocket-sized precision screwdriver set for only $14.46. The set includes a handle and four double-ended interchangeable bits with both Phillips and slotted tips — for the multitude of tiny-screw problems that life throws your way.
Pocket-Sized Precision Screwdriver Set [UniversalPart.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
After posting my last Bridge City Tool Works tool and having the readers point out that it was an archived (read: no longer sold) product, I’m telling you up front that this tool is not archived, but it’s not currently in stock either. Why am I posting about the flushing chisel then? It’s a neat solution for removing excess glue or cutting protruding wood — such as dowels, dovetails, tenons, and plugs – flush to the surface.
I stumbled across this deal at Sportsman’s Guide — strange place to buy a vise, I know. You can get this KR Tools 3-1/2″ cast iron bench vise for $5 when you apply the code “SH638″ at checkout. Rated at 8,000 PSI, the vise features replaceable steel jaws, dual-locking 360-degree swivel base, chrome-plated handle, and a striking anvil on the top. It weighs about ten pounds, which makes shipping about $5 to most locations.
Bench Vise [Sportsman's Guide]
KR Tools [Corporate Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
MSC has marked down this 13-piece ball-end hex key set to $8. Made by Allen, the set includes sizes 1/20, 1/16, 5/64, 3/32, 7/64, 1/8, 9/64, 5/32, 3/16, 7/32, 1/4, 5/16, and 3/8-inch, and they all come in a plastic holder.
The offer’s good through August 11, 2008. If you haven’t used ball-end hex keys for getting at poorly placed screws, we highly recommend them!
Note: If you’re having trouble getting the deal, you may have to click through the flyer, linked below — the wrenches are on the bottom of p. 13.
13-Pc. Ball-End Hex Key Set [MSC]
Flyer [MSC]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
If you’re going to coat your pickup bed with a roll-on bed-liner, prepping the bed correctly can mean the difference between a liner that lasts the lifetime of the truck and one that starts peeling in a few years. Like anything else worth doing right, sanding the bed is slow, hard work — luckily, Hutchins offers a sanding system to speed up the process and prepare the bed more effectively.
This chairmaker’s router will help you cut decorative grooves in chair seats — and it works equally well for cutting grooves in any straight or curved work. The fence adjusts so you can vary the location of the groove, plus it reverses to handle either straight or curved work. You can adjust the U-shaped cutter to change the amount of material it removes, and by simply reversing the cutter you can cut in the opposite direction — no need to adjust the fence.
The handsaw has existed in its current form for hundreds of years — you wouldn’t think it could be improved much. Evidently you don’t work for Bahco. Their designers have come up with a new handsaw design that’s either innovative or just overly complex.
The most obvious difference in the Ergo Handsaw System is that the handle and the blade separate. This allows you to change blades to match the material and exchange blades when the current one becomes dull. Why change blades when you could just use a different saw? By spending more on the handle you gain some advantages.
Cutting glass in a straight line is a snap, but curved cuts are a different story — I’ve tried and failed spectacularly. But maybe if I’d had a pair of these glass-nibbling pincers I would’ve done a better job.
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