With lawn and garden season fast approaching, it’s time to fire up the garden polluters, and by that I mean the tools powered by two-stroke engines. Luckily, Green Earth Technology has developed its new line of Green Oil, a “Green alternative” to your regular motor oil. Green Earth Technology makes their G-Oils from American-grown base oil that’s “enhanced with the power of nanotechnology and dehydrogenation”.

G-Oil contains bio-additives such as amino acids, plant and vegetable extracts, non-ionic surfactants, and plant-based fatty acids in a base of colloidal micelles. It all adds up to produce a range of oils that’ll work in anything from your lawn mower to your heavy-duty turbocharged and super-charged diesel.

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Leatherman’s new Skeletool is a stripped down, lightweight (five ounces!) multi-tool with all the tools you expect from a Leatherman: a screwdriver, a knife, and pliers.  And unlike with previous Leathermans, the knife and the bottle opener (the hook at the back) are accessible without opening the tool.  Oh yeah — it also looks bad ass.

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We’ve received quite a bit of email (and even some comments) requesting additional coverage of industrial tools and waterjet machining in particluar.  So, we went looking for a friendly “waterjet expert” to introduce us (and you) to the technology. 

Man, were we lucky.  We found Carl Olsen.  Carl works for OMAX, a manufacturer of high-end precision abrasive waterjet systems.  But Carl’s waterjet experience goes way back.  According to him, his father was one of the originators of the waterjet cutting concept back in the 1960’s, and while other kids played cowboys and indians, he ran around with the garden hose cutting up the yard playing “waterjet.” 

For the last 10 years, he’s helped OMAX develop and improve the software that controls their cutting machines, but in his spare time he created and maintains http://www.waterjets.org/, a site chock full of myth-dispelling excucational facts about waterjet technology.  Between all this, he took the time to talk to us.

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It’s hurricane season again, and whether you’re on the coast or inland, you’re likely to see the effects of these storms first-hand.  With that in mind, we’ve prepared a three-part series to help you get a grip on the tools that can help you weather the storm.

A month or so ago we had a close call here in North Texas with a spate of tornadoes that killed five people and destroyed a good bit of property.  While we escaped unharmed, the scary part was that the tornadoes came in the middle of the night; two of the people killed were an elderly couple who didn’t wake up until the storm hit.

To prepare for a storm, you first have to know it’s coming.  If you’re like us, the last time you heard about “alert” weather radios was back when they went off way too often — pretty much any time the weather station you’d tuned to issued a message — and eventually ended up turned off or stowed away.  Thankfully, technology has come a long way since then, and through the use of digital signals you can now receive timely, accurate alerts that actually apply to you. 

In part one of this series, we bring you up to speed on weather radios — and their new, high-tech cousins “public alert devices” – and give you an idea of how to select the best one for your situation.  (Lots more after the jump.)

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In yesterday’s comparison post we gave you the information you need to select an entry-level flux-core/MIG welder for your shop.   In today’s follow-up, we’ll walk you through using one of the welders from the comparison to build an inexpensive game chair to make playing GT4 or Forza a lot more fun. 

This project was completed entirely using Hobart’s Handler 125 EZ, which sells for around $380 on the street and is targeted at novice welders (and people who just want to get the job done).  With a project materials cost of around $80 (and considering the $40 rebate Hobart’s currently offering on the unit) you could buy the welder and build the chair for around $400 — about what you pay for much lesser chairs out of the back of magazines. 

Or, if you just want a game chair, you can win ours.  Click for details.  (Much, much more after the jump.)

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You can’t turn on the Discovery channel anymore without seeing someone welding, and we’ve received a number of requests from readers asking for more coverage of the subject.  So, ask and you shall receive: we did some research and discovered that it’s a lot easier to get started welding than in years past.  Flux-Core and even MIG welders are easily within the range of the beginner, and offer the ability to quickly reach a point in the learning curve where you can build some fun projects.

In this post we’ve rounded up fourteen “entry-level” flux-core and MIG welders to give you an idea of what to expect when you go shopping.  And look for a combination “hands-on” and “how-to” tomorrow where we build a project with one of the welders included in the comparison.  (Lots more after the jump.)

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This week our old cordless drill died, and it’s time for a replacement.  But with so many new technologies and so many almost (but not quite) identical units on the market, selecting a cordless drill/driver can be challenging.  Gone are the days where there were only two drills on the shelf to choose from; your average Home Depot stocks over 40 of them!

We’ve waded through the specs, battery systems, and hype to offer you this massive comparison of over 100 units to help you find the one that’s right for you.  (More after the jump, including a downloadable Excel spreadsheet of 100+ drills and their specs.)

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