If you want a dependable, long-lived battery, you’ve got to keep it charged — and that goes double for vehicles that see infrequent use, like boats, lawn tractors, and your babied classic car. Schumacher designed this on-board charger to be mounted inside your vehicle, close to the battery, so a topped-off battery is always just an extension cord away.

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A lot of tools get combined together into ungainly messes that were probably best left on the drawing board — but one that you might actually keep with you is Rapid Tool’s Shark.  (I think they should have named it Bruce.)  It combines a handy retractable utility knife with a set of pliers-style wire strippers, good for handyman and professional electrician alike.

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Disconnect the battery, hook up your new equipment, connect the battery, test, repeat as needed. It’s not so bad if you’ve just got the one project, but if you’re restoring a car or doing extensive customizations, or if you’re racing, all that disconnecting and reconnecting can get old fast. Install this switch and you can disconnect the power with just a flick of the wrist — and you don’t have to mess with twisting or stowing the cables where they won’t flop back onto the battery terminals.

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I hoped this was an electric bazooka when I saw the picture, but it only bends PVC pipe. But maybe that isn’t such a tiny feat; I’ve cracked or snapped a lot of PVC while trying to get a shape I wanted. The key: You’ve got to heat it up to get a good tight angle. Something like this scheme might be ok if you only bend PVC as an art or hobby, but if you’ve got lots of PVC pipe to bend you’ll probably want a PVC-bending oven, or box — or tube.

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Broken bulbs happen, and I’ve even heard of bulbs falling out of the screw threads after a while. I like the EaseOut bulb extractor, but I figure most Toolmongers will just use a pair of pliers if they can reach the light socket. If the broken bulb is out of reach, though, you might want to pick up this long-reach broken-bulb extractor from Unger.

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I was prepping for a little electrical work around the homestead recently, and I had to run to the local hardware store. There I saw a curious outlet on display that looked obviously broken. But on closer inspection I realized it wasn’t broken — it was a 360-degree rotating socket outlet.

This outlet will accept any weird plug format, at just about any angle — other than the rotating sockets it appears to be a regular 15A unit in all respects. After considering it for a bit, we think this might be a pretty slick idea. It costs a lot more than the standard cheapo outlet, but it looks worthwhile if you value flexibility.

Are we missing something here, or is this a “why didn’t I think of this before” type of thing? Let us know in comments.

360 Electrical Outlet [360 Electrical]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

When you’re wiring up your shop, you really “ought” to run your wires through conduit, but the really cool tools for bending conduit and pipe cost too much to be practical for a small shop. So, if you’re going to do the job like the fire marshall would prefer, you might want to look at a less expensive option — a hand bender. For about $30 it provides a correctly shaped form for bending the conduit without breaking or kinking it.

You can buy them with or without the big metal handle, since a threaded metal pipe will work fine. This version from Gardner Bender features markings for the most common bend angles and a bend-back channel for slip-ups.

We’ve mentioned before that the Gardner Bender site is a mite tetchy, so I included a direct link to the PDF catalog — you’ll have to jump to page 57.

PDF Catalog [Gardner Bender]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]

Not only did Paladin include a SOG beveled-edge blade on this specially designed electrician’s knife, but they also packed 11 different wire strippers into the handle. If you do any electrical work, you might want to add this knife to your tool pouch.

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If you’ve got a yard with lots of “trash” trees or big old trees that drop lots of branches, you may not need an ark-sized chipper that costs a bundle.  For as little as $175 you can get one of these garden-gnome-sized McCulloch electric shredders. It’ll handle the stuff not worth cutting up, and the rest goes on the woodpile for the winter. It’s not a beast, but it might be the right tool for the job — and maybe it won’t bring back unpleasant memories of that scene from Fargo.

Electric Shredders [McCulloch]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]

For the sake of convenience engineers designed the terminal-block screw, which can be driven with either a slotted or Phillips screwdriver. Although a slotted screwdriver can transfer a lot of torque to a fastener, it can slip off the head — not very desirable if you’re working inside a service panel. On the other hand, a Phillips screwdriver stays on the screw head, but tends to cam out at higher torque. To specifically fit terminal-block screws, Wiha designed these cross-slotted screwdrivers, incorporating the best features of both slotted and Phillips drivers.

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If you ever remodel something, you’ll probably need to add or move an electrical outlet, and a fish tape’ll make that job a lot easier. No, a fish tape isn’t an adhesive for catching fish; it’s a steel tape that you “fish” through walls or floors — you attach your cable to the end of the fish tape, then retract the tape to pull the cable through the cavity. Ideal makes this 120′, 4.6-pound fish tape from high-grade steel, and it’s housed in a molded plastic case with a non-slip, oversized, finger-grip handle. Sears has marked it down to $30, so it won’t break your bank.

Tuff-Grip Fish Tape [Sears]
Tuff-Grip Fish Tape [Ideal]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

In a recent Dealmonger, we let you know that the big boxes were clearing out their Circuit Alert wire strippers, but it turns out it wasn’t because of slow sales. In fact, the Circuit Alert tools have sold so well, they decided to completely overhaul the product line.  Now all Circuit Alert tools come with the same tiny, interchangeable voltage sensor.

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The mind boggles at all you could do with five gallons of free lube. Before you get too excited, this is cable-pulling lubricant, and the promotion comes with a catch: to get your free bucket of Cable-Gel lube you have to buy one of Greenlee’s new UG5 Ultra Glider packages. The UG5 Ultra Glider regulates the application of lube when you’re pulling and feeding cable, eliminating the need for a second person on the job to hand-lube it.

It’ll set you back a pretty penny — the UG511ST, pictured, costs around $3,500, so it’s really a tool for the professional tradesman.  Still, check out the data sheet for some double entendres that’ll make you blush.

Free Lube Promotion [Greenlee]
UG5 Datasheet [Greenlee]
UG511ST [All2ools]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Needlenose pliers excel at precision work: those times you want to grab that small screw, bend that wire, or pick up that button from the small hole in the floor. Any old pair of needlenose will work for those tasks, but what if you need to grab wires so fine you can barely see ‘em? You don’t want some clonky pair of needlenose pliers whose jaws don’t even touch — you want the strength of pliers, plus the precision of a pair of tweezers. Xuron’s Tweezernose pliers give you just that.

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Know what’s cool? Braided wire loom, that’s what’s cool — it keeps your wiring clean and organized and also protects it from the elements. Thing is, plastic cabling is a real pain to install sometimes, and frankly I’m surprised it took so long for someone to make a tool like this. You just slip the PowerBraid Tool around your wiring, then put the split loom around it, and pull the tool along the length of the loom. Then you’re good to go. Talk about cutting your work in half.

PowerBraid Tool [Painless Wiring]

Keep the battery charged on your ATV, motorcycle, or personal watercraft, and it’ll be healthy and ready to go when you need it. Deltran makes Battery Tender trickle chargers in various sizes and capacities for different applications. Their waterproof unit will keep batteries full even when the charger’s fully submerged in water — never again will a sudden downpour make you run outside to make sure the battery charger’s covered.

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Cutting conduit leaves sharp edges that can nick and penetrate wire insulation, especially when pulling wire. The rough edges also can make it difficult to attach fittings. Klein makes a screwdriver specifically for reaming conduit. As a bonus they also provide a hood around the screwdriver blade, to make tightening conduit fittings easier.

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