I have a tremendous amount of respect for the woodcrafting capabilities of the Amish. I’m sure most of them could run circles around many of us with hand tools, and the level of their craftsmanship is highly regarded in many circles. My question is what on earth made them think the Heat Surge was a good project to get involved with?

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As you can see from this mangled piece of trim, I recently had a router mishap. Thankfully I wasn’t injured — the only casualty was the oak trim — but it was exciting for a few minutes there, and the incident brought to mind a few things I thought I’d share.

When I was ‘round about fourteen, our assistant shop teacher –- a very grizzly, annoyed sort of man –- brought us all around the nearest shop station, told us to pay attention, and gave us the most effective demonstration ever.

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People will try to tell you you can’t do a certain project, or you need tons of cash on hand to tackle minor projects — it’s one of my biggest beefs.  Perhaps they mean well, but the problem is that folks less pigheaded than the average Toolmonger might actually listen and not attempt small household repairs.  The simple fact:  You can do a lot of projects yourself, without thirty years experience or thousands of dollars to throw at ‘em.

This picture by ghb624 sums up the attitude I’m talking about:  Just get it done.  That’s often all it takes.  In this case, ghb had a leak in his roof, but instead of whining and crying about what to do or wondering how much it would cost, he got up on the roof and fixed it.

You’ll notice there’s no fanfare, no spectators in the photo with him — that’s how DIY is.  Some call it thankless work;  we call it getting it done.  And once you’ve got a few tools and a few projects under your belt, you may find that fixing a sink or replacing a toilet isn’t as scary as it used to be.

Whether you’re a rank amateur or seasoned veteran, try and tackle that window that won’t shut, or install the new garage door opener yourself.  Though you’ll want to leave some projects to the pros — AC unit repair, for instance — you can pull off most of ‘em without the hired guns.

The sad fact of the matter is there’s a reason stores chain up the valuables and make tool corrals to keep the high-end gear in the store.  It’s because a few morons kill it for the rest of us.  Just the other day I was checking out the Bosch lineup at one of the local big-boxes and was quite pleased to see the drills and gear displayed where I could pick them up and play with them — no tethers or anything.  A day later I was there again, and two of the batteries were missing.  Two days after that, all four were gone and only the tools remained.

I asked about the disappearance and was informed that folks had walked off with them — they were surprised any of the batteries made it past the first day.  I know it should be expected that valuable, easily-palmed gear will disappear, but it’s still sad that it’s universally true.

It’s like kindergarten all over again.  We can’t be trusted with the really cool toys because some idiot, who eats paste and didn’t learn to respect other people’s stuff, screws the rest of us.  I realize I’m taking a bit of license here, but it’s better than taking display-model batteries.

Brightly colored Christmas trees are already up in the big boxes and local shops this year, displayed in rows, their breathtaking light displays winking back at you from across the store.  It’s enough to give you holiday buying fever –- as it was intended to.  Just keep your head, and remember you don’t need to spend yet.

If you’re in need of some new holiday swag and there’s any way you can limp through this year and wait until December 26th, do it.  The same 7-1/2’ tree with the $150 price tag will go for about $20 after Xmas. In fact, everything else’ll be slashed, too.  Don’t fall for the glitz and glitter — $50 after the season will get you an entire attic full of light-up crap.

The art of organizing a workshop can make a big difference in how you work. Here at the Toolmonger shop we engage in constant discussion about the right tool for the job, which tool is a good tool — and then we generally grab the tool closest to hand, unless it’s really the wrong tool for the job. It’s a really interesting phenomenon.

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I had a plastic welding kit when I was a kid — one very much like the one (pictured above) that I ran across on Gizmodo last week. It’s a pretty simply toy: a motor in the “welder” spins plastic “welding rods.” The friction between the soft plastic “rod” and other plastic items creates enough heat to melt the rod, which then hardens and attaches things together.

(I know, since it’s almost always the rod that melts instead of the items kids are hooking together, this is technically brazing. But try writing kid-friendly packaging with “brazing” on it.)

As the Giz points out, this kind of toy is probably a lawsuit waiting to happen — you know, when little Bobby gets a small welt from spinning the rod on his finger, or when Timmy brazes his toy cell phone to the front of daddy’s new $5,000 plasma HDTV. Such is our litigious society.

So instead of learning from the welt, Bobby grows up in blissful ignorance, eventually picking up a Harbor Freight MIG unit after a long night of American Chopper reruns, and proceeds to flash and burn the crap out of himself and every metal item he owns. (Timmy, well, grows up to be a well-adjusted kid spared the merciless ass-beating he’d have endured after jacking up the TV.)

My point is simple: it’s easy to hurt yourself with tools — especially as a child. But that doesn’t mean we should shield children from every possible injury, robbing them of valuable — and often inexpensive — life experience. Toys like this plastic welder give kids a chance to use a real tool and learn how fun it can be to take charge of one’s environment instead of just accepting things the way they are. As most Toolmongers know, with a few tools, a lot of sweat and spare time, and enough desire, one can have most anything.

Anyway, if you want to buck the trend and give your kids an early start, you can have your own Discovery Power Welder for about $30 via the link below. And do us (and yourself) a favor: follow up that tool gift with the gift of knowledge and experience, lest you find (as Gizmodo suggests) “all your credit cards fused into one lump, never to be used again.”

Working Plastic-Welder Toy For Kids [Gizmodo]
Discovery Power Welder [Discovery Store]

Standby power is getting more press lately, and a few companies out there want to sell you something to save you money — strange, they want you to give your money to them instead.

BUT! Fellow Toolmongers! Today for you we have something fan-tastic, practically for free, something that you can use, something that if you had to pay for it you would give real money for it!

Nah, really I just want to point out that putting your electronics on switches, and turning them off, is the easiest solution. But these resources may help you if you’re really into convenience, or measuring your specific situation.

As usual, Wikipedia provides some interesting information, including the fact that the government got on the bandwagon in 2001. You know it’s bad if the government is ahead of you in saving money! At least they’ve compiled lists of low-standby-power appliances, in case you want to take it into consideration when you go shopping.

Surge Protector With Remote [Belkin]
Standby Power [Wikipedia]
Appliance Database [LBL.gov]
Standby Power [Energy Star]

Last week’s post about my ordeal with customer service, just to order a drive belt for my sander, turned out to be a hot button — and here’s a follow-up to it. I’ve installed the new drive belt, and the sander is ready to go again.

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Modern customer-support lines are the butt of countless jokes, and rightly so. These stories, the stuff of myth and legend, are often just folks venting, saying to their friends what they couldn’t say to a live person on the other end of the phone. I recently did battle with a few of the seasoned vets at the Lowe’s help desk and came away — like many other support callers — with a few new scars and an overwhelming desire to torch the product in question.

After hundreds of hours of hard use, my Task Force belt/disc sander snapped its primary drive belt. For those of you who can’t picture it, it’s the drive belt that connects the motor to the large sanding belt on the top of the unit. Without it, only the disc spins. So when it snapped it rendered the sander largely useless, and I needed a new one.

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When you finally find the project that you really need a welder for, and you’re not a welding genius, you need to research what exactly you should be looking for in a welder. You’ve got lots of options when it comes to welding, starting with MIG and TIG — but then you have to watch the features on the model you purchase, to be sure you aren’t trying to use tissue paper when you need cardboard. Buyer’s guides can help, especially with no-nonsense advice.  You can also check out our “getting started” post on welding.

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July 4th — the firebug’s holiday — is coming, so I’m bringing up fire safety again. At the Toolmonger shop, we take safety very seriously, and although we’re not the final authority on fire safety, we run into some good information and try to get opinions from experts when we can. Whether you’re following our advice or someone else’s, make sure you’re as prepared for a fire as you can be — it could be your shop, or even a life on the line.

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I’m sure you’ve all noticed that the price of gasoline here in America hasn’t just risen — it’s skyrocketed. But I wonder if you’ve thought about how much this affects the working people of America — and the working people of the South even more. If you live in the Northeast, you can commute. You can take public transportation. If you’re a contractor or handyman in Texas, you’re just plain screwed. You drive a truck — not because you think it’s cool, but because you damn well need one to haul your s#!$. And even the most carefully-designed trucks get downright s#!tty mileage. Even more noticeably, if you work in an area like the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, you likely drive your ass off to span the huge work area you’ve got to cover.

The bottom line is that while other people can trade in their stupidly-excessive Hummers and Escalades for Hondas, working people who actually need a truck are taking a hit in the wallet that’s extreme, ugly, and not fair.

And God forbid you own a diesel, you poor sucker.

While we see dozens of new alternatives coming down the road in the next few years for people-hauling commuters, what’s in store for working people who still need to tow and haul? Don’t the automotive designers realize that if they expect to have a damn toilet installed for under $1,000 they’re going to have to figure out a way for the freakin’ workman to get to their house for less than $100?

Let’s get with it, folks. We need some trucks that get decent mileage — and still work for a living!

(Thanks, David Hudson, for the kick-ass photo.)

If you don’t know, ask. I ask lots of questions — because I don’t know everything — and my inquisitive nature recently led to a badass experience at the metal yard we frequent.

Last week I started chatting with the the gentleman working the counter at the steel yard. When I mentioned we were building a rig to break some tools, he told me the steel yard crew is really hard on their tools, so they’ve found a great supplier for big ticket items like magnetic drills. I immediately asked, “What’s a magnetic drill?,” and he rewarded my question with a delightful demonstration of the tool.

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When the proud day finally comes, and your son/daughter/mother/girlfriend loved one is finally moving out, what tools do they need? Whether you donate some of your extras or head off to the big box in search of a tool kit, you’ll have to decide which tools are the essentials for someone moving out on their own. From previous posts, we obviously all agree that they’ll need a knife, at least a utility knife — but what about wrenches, pliers, and other handy life-saving tools?

Let’s say you’re limited to what can fit in a small tool bag, like the size of an overnight bag, or an average-sized men’s boot. What critical tools go with your loved one, to get them through the shock of not being able to borrow yours? And which tools do you wish would fit in the boot? Let us know in comments.

Recently in Massachusetts, a semi driver was critically burned and later died after the tanker he was driving flipped, igniting over 9,000 gallons of gasoline. Bystanders valiantly tried to rescue him, but the flames and a stuck seatbelt prevented him from being rescued in time. A half-sharpened penknife could have made it possible to release him sooner, and that might have changed the outcome of this tragic story. For whatever reason, no one at the scene carried a knife or rescue tool — and it made me wonder why.

I once received detention for accidentally (I swear) bringing my giant SwissChamp to high school. Upon learning this, my father was surprised — because in his uphill-both-ways school days he was required to bring a knife to school. Pencil sharpeners weren’t available, and everyone carried a knife.

What do you all think? If you carry a knife or pocket tool with a blade, what issues have you come across? If you don’t carry one, why not? Tell us in the comments.

I hate to pick on Stanley again, but they just happen to offer examples of what I’m talking about. On the left we have an antique Stanley driver handle — and on the right, a driver found in stores today. A casual observer might notice that one is ornately carved and the other is about as utilitarian as it gets. Both are Stanley, but they play completely different roles in our everyday lives.

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