Jeremy writes: “Everyone has a 3/8″ drive torque wrench right?  And most also have a 1/2″ one, too.  But I’ll wager a guess that most DO NOT have a 1/4″ drive torque wrench.  I suspect the typical price of one is prohibitive for most people.  It’s very hard to find one under $125 unless you go to Harbor Freight.  I bought one a few years back and (skeptical of the quality) I put it on the torque analyzer at work.  It was better then 3% accuracy.  Now I have something for all those little fasteners that love to strip.”

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You may have heard Chuck mention that I’m, well, somewhat frugal.  That’s an understatement.  I’m cheap-ass Toolmonger.  For me, shelling out the green is like parting with children; I just can’t bring myself to do it.  So when I saw the Task Force jigsaw at Lowe’s the other day for just $19.97, even the inner cheapness in me said… maybe. 

Just from looking at the box, I’d say that I’ve seen more menacing looking bread slicers, but at this price point we’re not exactly interested in looks, are we?  The truth lies in the stats: a four amp motor, 800 to 3,000 strokes per minute, a keyless blade clamp, and a max wood cutting capacity of almost three inches.  Not so bad.

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If you’ve been jonesin’ for a multi-LED flashlight — but aren’t willing to shell out $40 for one — Harbor Freight may have your ticket with this nine-LED light selling for a whopping $5 right now. 

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Dan writes: “For anyone up here in Canada, Princess Auto is the Canadian version of Harbour Freight — a lot of cheap-but-sketchy tools (22-piece screwdriver set, $8.88!) and genuinely good prices for tarps, wheels, surplus.  It’s a great place to buy big 500-piece sets of c-clips, cotter pins, etc, so you’ll always have the size you need.  Oh, and, yes, it’s a dangerous place to get browsing…”

I love hearing about tools and tool shops from other countries, especially our neighbors to the North.  On each of my two visits to Canada I was surprised by how similar and how different simple things were from my home in Texas.

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We’ve got a drawer completely full of work gloves at the Toolmonger shop.  We carry some in vehicles, and we use them endlessly in the shop to carry steel around, etc.  The problem comes when you want to move something that you’d like to keep clean — like furniture or a big TV.  Sure, you could just forego the gloves, but a good pair of work gloves can really lower the pain and suffering of moving.

Our solution: Shop the local dollar stores for “work gloves.”  They’re poorly made and would disintigrate if you used them much in the shop, but they’re great if you just intend to keep them separate (as “clean gloves”) and only use them when you’re moving something nice.  I’m way too cheap to buy a $7 set of gloves for this purpose, but at $1 each, I’ll take two.

Reader Sizod submitted this planishing hammer today, writing: “How can you not get into metal work with prices this cheap?”  By cheap he means $130.

So we couldn’t help but mash-up a couple of categories and ask all you Toolmongers out there: Would it be worth $130 to get a little hammer time in on this cheap-ass tool?  Or shan’t we touch it?

Let us know in comments.

Pneumatic Planishing Hammer [Harbor Freight]

I know this stuff is available from a variety of sources, but I always pick it up from Harbor Freight because it’s seriously, seriously cheap.  Like $3.50 for an 18″ x 72″ piece — and that’s not even on sale.

I always pick up a little extra when it goes on sale — I paid $1 per 18″ x 72″ piece last time — and stick it in storage because I always seem to be adding some kind of tool box/cart/etc. to our collection here.  The photo above is from our tool cart, which is also highly recommended.  This stuff keeps the tools from sliding around when you roll the cart, and keeps nicer tools from getting scratched up/scratching up the box/cart.

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No, I don’t buy all my “cheap-ass tools” at Harbor Freight – though I do buy a lot of them there.  This 25-piece metric/SAE wrench set for $18, for example, is an integral part of my I-don’t-give-a-shit-if-you-steal-it junkyard toolkit.

I put my first junkyard kit together the day after someone walked off with a stick full of 3/8″ drive Craftsman sockets while I was waist-deep in a Honda pulling some parts for my old CRX.  Actually — I was a lot younger then — I whined about it to my Dad, and he recommended HF.  Come to think of it, I believe this was my introduction to the ‘Freightster.

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First up in our new “cheap-ass tools” category — tools that are seriously inexpensive, possibly poorly made, and definitely useful: this two-piece set of plastic sawhorses from Harbor Freight.

For $17 — $8.50 each — you get a couple of sawhorses that they claim will hold 350 lbs.  Here’s a tip, though: Watch carefully as Harbor Freight puts these on sale for $6 each pretty regularly.

We have four of these in the Toolmonger shop, and while I seriously doubt that two of them would hold 350 lbs in any serious test, they’re hella-useful.  We’ve used them to suspend items we’re painting — ours are now fully Technicolor — and we use four of them under a half-sheet of 3/4″ plywood as a quickie welding table.

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