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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

We talk to tool guys all the time who seem to have a connection to a certain tool, and we’ve found that two factors breed loyalty more than any others: comfort and feel.

(more…)

I don’t really have anything against Billy Mays. His commercials and infomercial stylings will one day be the stuff of legend and myth - as advertising will surely be beamed into our brains in the future. But until then Billy has got to shout louder and smile bigger than everyone else, all while giving you a ball-busting deal on his latest product.

I would like to say that if I had a crap-ton of Zorbee’s to hock that I might find a quieter, more dignified way to go about it, but all things considered, brute force might actually work pretty well. Billy gets into every living room at least 20 times a day and more on the weekends. After a while it seems pretty normal to see his grinning mug smiling back at you.

Somewhere between reruns of Gilligan’s Island and History’s Mysteries, a loud, cheerful dude tries to help you furnish your living room with the Hercules Hook or clean that nasty stain in the hallway. No one else is trying to help you figure this crap out at 3 in the morning — they’re all sleeping. Maybe you do need some Mighty Putty. That would make life better. He’s a crafty one, that Mr. Mays.

All we’re saying is beware of salesmen that don’t blink and seem to point at you more than twice in a 10 second span of time.

Billy Mays Products [Google]

I hate having a ton of junk in my pockets, even when that junk is useful, so this cool Kershaw carabiner caught my eye. It incorporates a little serrated blade into the body as well as two screwdrivers and the obligatory bottle opener. “Cool, I can clip my junk outside my pockets,” I thought. Then I saw the asking price: around $35. That seemed a bit steep — and after doing some shopping I found out exactly how steep it was.

(more…)

Toolmonger photo pool member Tssparky posted this great image of Marketing at work. It’s a classic example of the dismal state of tool education in this country.  Here’s my guess on how this image came to be:

The call went out to a marketing department somewhere for a photo of “construction work” with a strong lad doing quality craftsmanship – something to inspire consumers to shell out for the installation package at the local big-box.

Not finding any appropriate stock art, they had to stage a photo shoot to get the picture on the banners. That means they had to find the guy – probably fresh off work in the latest Gap ad – and dig up a drill from who-knows-where in order to do the shoot.

The really funny part: clearly has this guy not only never used a drill before, but for some unfathomable reason he’s selected a hammer drill for use on soft wood. And, as Tssparky points out, the model isn’t even holding the drill correctly. If he hit something hard, it’d whack him in the ribs. It is impressive, however, that he’s able to install countertop without getting that cream-colored shirt dirty at all.

The sad thing is that as this photo traversed the approval process, no one knew the difference. Not one person looked at this picture at any point before it went out and said, “That looks wrong.” 

The end effect is funny, but I worry for the future.

Toolmonger’s Photo Pool [Flickr]

The factors that lead to a tool purchase are often much simpler than tool companies might imagine. For example, a few weeks ago when I was picking out a pull saw at the local big box, the final push that led me to whip out my wallet and buy was the fact that one model included a case while the other didn’t.

(more…)

I took picture you see above today when I stopped in to Target to pick up a few things. I know the picture’s crappy and blurry, but the picture’s not important — it’s what’s in the picture that’s important: these are freakin’ rocket engines, and they’re available in a plain ‘ole department store.

Model rocketry is incredible fun, and educational at all sorts of levels. But for years stores have been scared silly to carry the black powder engines because of lawsuit-happy parents of undermonitored children. Thank God everyone’s decided that rockets really are for kids again.

I worked as a camp counselor for a few years in college, and I build easily well over 1,000 rockets — most of ‘em two-stagers — with kids. During the entire time, not one child was injured. Not one. Even most of the counselors who built foolish designs and launched them in unsafe manners (after hours, of course) never got hurt.

Anyway, who knows what future rocket scientists will find their love of rocketry at Target. Granted, they didn’t offer much of a selection of rockets — mainly the pre-built type with the not-gonna-fail-no-matter-what plastic fins — but still, it’s a start.

Toolmonger’s Photo Pool [Flickr]

As any Toolmonger knows, opinions are like, um, cheap screwdrivers: every “old tool guy” has a drawer full.  And while the advice of “old tool guys” can save your ass, sometimes it’s just based on the tool-guy equivalent of old wives’ tales.  So it shouldn’t have surprised me that I received an earful from the peanut gallery when I told them about my recent 8′ x 3′ bookcase project — and how I made the 8′ cuts with a Skilsaw instead of a table saw.  Based on all the guffawing and laughter, you’d think I told them I was trying to hammer nails with a pencil. 

Why is it that so many people believe that you can’t build furniture without a $20,000 wood shop?  Incredibly, folks have been building furniture since long before electricity was available to drive power tools. 

(more…)

We spend a lot of time scouring the web for tools, and sometimes we come across some seriously strange stuff – like this picture.  How did this post puller get all beat to hell between manufacturer and photo shoot?  And even more curiously, who drove that steel post into that nice Astroturf?  Isn’t there normally concrete underneath?

Time for you to hire a new photographer, Nasco.

Steel Post Extractor [Nasco]

Case recently announced their new vault program, an announcement that took me by surprise to say the least.  It appears to be true, though.  Here’s a portion of the press release that confirms it:

Coins, jewelry, stock certificates and your Case knife collection – all of these are items to be stored away for safekeeping. There are many valuable items at Case, but the most prized would be the knives we make. Or more accurately, the knife patterns we make – like the Case Trapper, Case Peanut or Case Seahorse Whittler. The Case patterns, and there are more than 140, are treasures not only for the factory, but they are prized by our collectors. That’s why the time is right for Case to build a vault – the Case XX Vault – where knife tooling will be stored for safekeeping.

That’s right, starting Jan 1, 2008 Case will toss the Doctor, Lockback, Tuxedo and Cheetah (my personal favorite) into “the vault.”  Sounds like a good thing, right?  Think again.  For those who don’t know what “vaulting” entails or how it’ll work, think Disney – as in “buy one for your kid now ’cause we’re not going to let you buy one for a few years.”

(more…)