Maybe you’ve lost the original pin wrench that came with your grinder, or maybe you’re sick of keeping up with a different wrench for each grinder you own. If so, you’re in luck — you can choose from several replacement options.

Harbor Freight sells a cheap adjustable pin wrench that may fit the bill. It adjusts to fit grinder hubs from 3/8″ to 1-1/16″. For only $4 this cheap-ass tool of the bunch could be yours.

If Harbor Freight tools make you cringe, try an almost identical model from Garrett Wade for four times the price. Don’t fear, you’re getting something for the extra dough — this wrench can accommodate a wider variety of grinders, with hubs from 3/8″ to 1-9/16″.

Amazon also sells an adjustable pin wrench that looks like a pair of dividers. For $15 this 7″ long wrench fits a much larger range of grinder hub sizes. Made of chrome vanadium steel, this wrench features 5/32″ diameter pins. Customers have complained that these pins are too large for their grinder — but that’s nothing a few minutes on the grinding wheel can’t solve.

Adjustable Pin Wrench [Harbor Freight]
Adjustable Pin Wrench [Garrett Wade]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Garrett Wade sells a crescent wrench that’s been stripped down to its skeleton — all excess metal has been whittled away to leave a wrench they claim is 20% lighter than similar sized wrenches but still maintains 100% of its strength.

Made by one of Japan’s best-known professional toolmakers — if anybody knows who that is, let us know in the comments — these lightweight adjustable wrenches come in 8″ and 10″ versions.

Right now Garrett Wade is discounting each wrench by $10 — that puts the 8″ wrench at $20 and the 10″ wrench at $30. In situations where every ounce counts, these might come in handy.

Lightweight Adjustable Wrench [Garrett Wade]

This may look like another boring joint clamp — in fact, that’s what it is. Crafters can choose from about 50 types of joint clamps to help out when making a box. But this one will clamp boards of any length, which is noteworthy. In fact, it might be worthy of picking up a few.

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Old-school hand tools always make us smile, and not just because they have a lot of history behind them — they do — or because they’re fun to use — they are — but because often they can help you out when modern technology leaves you a bit stumped. Take for example this hand drill or “brace”, as they’re sometimes known. Though old, it’ll still come in handy when you need to drill a prefect hole slowly.

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These stainless steel pots, normally used for rice and Asian food, make completely sweet containers for storing fasteners and washers or perhaps a variety of different colored furniture waxes, one in each pot. Each level measures approximately 5-1/4″ in diameter and 2″ deep — and they’re sturdy to boot.

Though it’s a great idea, the cost seems a little high. Even on sale at Garrett Wade, the set runs around $90. While we dig their pro-grade food-service style, a trip to the local housewares store might net you about the same number of containers, for much less than this.

Four-Level Stainless Steel Stackable Pots [Garrett Wade]

This does seem a little strange, but the multi-angle drill attachment adjusts (and locks) at any angle between 180 and 90 degrees so you can drill in all sorts of odd locations.  At least that’s the idea — it looks cumbersome and unwieldy to us, though.

The site says you just hook this thing to your drill like any other attachment, and off you go drilling holes at funny angles. However, even in the picture here, you clearly could’ve drilled that hole at that angle without the use of the funky contraption. Still, if you must have one, it runs about $38 from Garrett Wade. As luck would have it, they’re in stock and on sale.

Multi-Angle Drill Attachment [Garrett Wade]

The tool knife wins in the Best Impulse Buy category this week. Tool geeks love to geek out and collect unusual tools that their friends don’t have. This knife definitely qualifies. Only one thing makes this knife interesting: the hand tools cut in relief into the brass handles.

Otherwise, you have a standard multibladed pen knife. Closed, the knife measures 3-3/8″ long and 3/16″ thick. It features a 2″ drop point blade and a bottle opener tool on the other end. We’d like to get it as a gift, but we can’t picture any Toolmonger blowing $30 on it themselves.

Tool Knife [Garrett Wade]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

The post-holiday sell-off continues. Garrett Wade, famous for overpricing by about 20 percent, is having an overstock sale: up to 50 percent off dozens of selected items. You might want to take a look, even if their website banner for the sale is bone-chillingly ugly.

Be careful to look at the prices — half of them are nowhere near 50 percent off, so be sure to shop smart. But Garrett Wade has discounted a number of cool tools to a price you might actually consider paying. We found a sweet assembly jig, normally priced at around $95, marked down to $65.

GW hasn’t posted an expiration date, but we’re guessing they won’t do this for long.

Overstock Sale Items [Garrett Wade]
Assembly Jig [Garrett Wade]

Classic tools, though sweet, can take a bite out of the ole’ paycheck. So when I was price checking a nice set of Warrington pattern hammers, I was shocked to find a three-hammer set from Garrett Wade for under $30. They’re easy on the eyes as well as the budget.

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It’d been a long time since I got really pumped about an innovation in ratcheting wrenches – then I saw these Ultrastar slip-jaw ratcheting wrenches on the Garrett Wade site. Schwing! You hold it in your hand like a normal open-end wrench. But since you never have to take it off the fastener, you don’t lose your rhythm — and you just keep rocking it back and forth, back and forth, til you’re done.

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Small planes at a big price – that’s what Garrett Wade is offering in terms of their little wood trim-installation planes designed for jobsite carpentry guys.  They’re steel-bodied finger planes a little larger than 3/4 of an inch wide.  Inside their tiny leather wallet, they’ll slide right into a jeans pocket — or a toolbox.

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Since before I was born, my father had an old Stanley push drill out in the shop.  When I was a kid, I carried it around and used it to bore holes in anything I could get my hands on.  Stanley discontinued it a few years back, but Garret Wade offers a Taiwan repro model that looks pretty close.  I’m a sucker for a classic.

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Crooked posts can throw a decking project into a tail spin in a hurry — “almost stright” won’t fly.  To make sure you’ve got everything on the level, you need a bit of right-angled help from a post level.  It isn’t much more than a 90-degree plastic piece with a level bubble on either side, but that’s all you need for quick adjustments to get a post or beam straight.

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One side of this digging tool’s scoop is deeply-serrated (and sharpened!) to aid in cutting roots and vines, but it effectively looks like a 12″ long field knife — and a great way to accidentally scare the living crap out of your neighbors while gardening.

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A hacking knife is almost exactly what it sounds like — a knife used to hack through the hard outer sheath on electrical cables or remove old putty from windows.  You’ll find them mainly in England, but they’re also available state-side and can come in handy in lots of projects around the home and shop. We’ve particularly used them to scrape and cut stubborn sheilding from cable.

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