After all the prepping and painting is over, you still have to clean your equipment. Ryobi is looking to make that last step a little easier with its paint brush cleaner. Plug in the cleaner, fill it with water or thinner, and it’ll supposedly clean any brush up to 3″ wide in a few seconds.

What’s more, they claim the cleaner will make your brushes last longer and perform better. Soft brushes rotate at 950RPM to “gently” clean the inserted paint brush. The 10″ x 11″ x 12″ cleaner weighs 4 lbs. and can hold up to 1 gallon of cleaning fluid.

The paint brush cleaner only seems to be available online at Home Depot for $30, but at least it looks like there’s free shipping.

Paint Brush Cleaner [Ryobi]
Paint Brush Cleaner [Home Depot]

I cut my own wood, and I’ve tried splitting logs with the metal wedges, but after two of the wedges stuck in some old maple — and after some aggravation with the chain saw getting them back — saw splitting has become my preferred method.  This Ryobi Electric Log Splitter boasts four tons of splitting power, and it can split logs up to 20″ long and 12″ in diameter.

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With summer coming to an end and fall fast approaching, you want to get your yard in order before winter arrives — that includes cutting back and pruning your trees as they enter into their dormant period, and before the heavy snowfalls.  To help with that, Amazon’s selling this 18″ factory-reconditioned Ryobi electric chainsaw for $80, with free shipping.

The saw features a 3.5HP, 13A motor, automatic bar and chain lubrication with quick view, and a molded plastic case.

Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Electric Chainsaw [Ryobi]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Here’s a sweet deal from HomeDepot.com: All summer long, they’ll be shipping most power tools for free. According to Home Depot:

“The offer is valid on select tool purchases from 2/21/08 - 7/31/08 only. Offer includes: combination tool kits, drill presses, cordless drills, corded drills, impact drivers, screwdrivers, screwguns, sanders, polishers, grinders, hammer drills, chippers, breakers, lathes, staplers, planers, joiners, routers, recip saws, spiral saws, cut-off saws, circular saws, jig saws, band saws, worm drive saws, mitre saws, table saws, heat guns, nibblers, shears, stationary table saws and nailers. Offer excludes garden tools, plumbing tools and electrical tools.”

The offer also excludes certain package weights and sizes, and they won’t deliver to P.O. boxes, Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico.

Free Shipping Deal [Home Depot]

Small spenders take note: Ryobi has added lithium-ion power to their low-buck One+ system, dramatically increasing the line’s potential and raising the bar significantly for affordable cordless power tools. You’ll find several combination sets on store shelves now — all featuring the new batteries plus a retina-burning, high-visibility green color scheme.

For today’s test, we snagged a four-piece set — the “Ryobi One+ 4-PC Lithium Power Tool Kit,” which includes a charger, two batteries, a drill/driver, a reciprocating saw, a circular saw, and a worklight. Wondering just what $300 buys you in a four-piece li-ion combo? Read on past the jump to find out.

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As if you weren’t already getting great bang-for-your-buck from your Ryobi tools — now they’re offering reconditioned tools through their official web distributor, at about 30% off retail prices. I’ve purchased a few items from them, and they were all in like-new condition. The only thing distinguishing these from brand-new is the “RECON” branding somewhere on the tool. They even carry a one year warranty.

If you have the One+ system, you can pick up some very nice additions for cheap, like the 18V angle grinder for $28 — nice!

Reconditioned Ryobi Tools [Gardner Inc.]

We’ve always said that if you can make a tool cordless — regardless of whether or not that’s a good idea — Ryobi’s probably offers one in their 18V One+ line.  Here’s one that looks pretty useful, though: the P410 random orbital sander. 

Granted, it’s probably not the ideal choice for all sanding — and it does look like the tool equivalent of Frankenstein’s wife – but when you just need to knock down a few fibers or correct a little imperfection, it’d be handy to grab this instead of digging out the extension cord.  And that overmold rubber GripZone up top looks pretty comfortable.

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TM reader ChaimWhite directed us to what’s apparently an upcoming release of a new tool line from Ryobi.  What is it?  We have no idea.  The website (link below) is currently active and shows a countdown to a release just less than a month away, but if you click through to play the accompanying Flash game, it’s all screwed up.  It appears to be some kind of trivia game, but all the questions and answers show up as “undefined.”

Maybe this is a stab at something like Halo 2’s pre-release viral marketing site.  Or maybe somebody just threw the switch a little early.  If you know any more of the story or anything about the new tool line, drop us a line.

Hypergreenbox.com [Ryobi]

Update: TM readers say the quiz works for them.  Maybe it’s a Firefox issue.

I knew a guy who had one of Ryobi’s special woodworking drill presses — known as the WDP1850 “Wood Drilling System” — back in the day, and I can’t help but wonder why Ryobi stopped manufacturing it.  With a “VersaTable” base that tilted for angled work and an accurately-marked fence, this was a true woodworking drill press as opposed to a re-purposed metal drill.

But it’s gone.  Amazon lists it but no sellers offer it.  Ryobi doesn’t mention it on their product page.  I even struck out checking eBay for one.  Maybe I’ll give Craigslist a look next.  It seems to me that this would fly off the shelves at Home Depot if it was priced halfway reasonably.

If you run across one, drop a comment.  If I’ve got the cash, I’ll jump on it, or if I’m too slow, I’m sure one of our readers would be interested.  And if you owned one of these, I’d love to hear your comments about it, too.

Via Amazon (Not In Stock, But Info Available) [What's this?]

We’ve always been a little concerned about runtime on cordless angle grinders — and doubly concerned about Ryobi’s, considering the comments we’ve seen regarding the One+ line (both good and bad) — but you’ve really got to give Ryobi credit for their massive expansion of the line.  You can now get everything but the kitchen sink that’ll happily accept One+ batteries.

That said, maybe we’ll have to eat our words.  We have yet to test a cordless angle grinder.  I suppose it’s time to rectify that.

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Ryobi’s got an interesting take on outdoor power tools: Why buy and maintain a half-dozen engines when you’re only going to use one tool at a time?  With their Expand-It system you can purchase any one of a number of different Ryobi split-shaft string trimmers, then swap out the business end with any of a long list of accessories includinga brush cutter, edger, blower, cultivator, limb pruner, and hedge trimmer. 

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You’ve gotta love the way Ryobi’s adding everything but the kitchen sink to their 18V One+ line, including this new wet/dry canister vac.  What a great idea!  We’ve got a humongo-big wet/dry, but it’s a PITA to drag out just to clean up the car or pick up a small spill.  This looks great for that kind of thing, and if you’ve already bought into the One+ system via one of Ryobi’s low-price combo kit deals, you’re good to go.

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Featuring 215 drills and driving bits in a snap-open-and-fold-flat case, this looks like a pretty slick package for casual use around the home where it’s not as critical that you have the most high-dollar bits as it is that you have a variety — including the one that fits the project at hand.  Our favorite part: all those “pieces” aren’t mollys and screws — 115 of them are even drill bits.

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You’ve got to give Ryobi some credit for extending their One+ line well beyond the standard drill, recip, circ, and flashlight.  We’ve already written about their fan — a great idea — and now they’ve released a radio, too — both powered by the standard 18V Ryobi One+ batteries.

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Looks like Ryobi’s giving away a specially-painted Mustang as well as some tool packages.  Obviously the Mustang’s the grand prize.  First prize lets you select $2000 worth of Ryobi tools to outfit your shop.  Twenty-five second prize winners’ll receive a Ryobi P860 combo kit.  There are other prizes, too.

To enter you’ll have to cough up some personal information at ryobitools.com.  The contest runs until December 31.

“Drop The Top Sweepstakes” Official Rules [Ryobitools.com]

Like Skil’s “LaserX2″ — which we mentioned back in June – Ryobi’s new “dual-laser” circular saw projects two parallel laser beams to show not only the line along which the saw’ll cut, but also the area of material that’ll be lost to the blade.  (The area between the two beams represents waste.)  Ryobi’s calling this the “Exactline Laser Alignment System.”

Besides the abundance of lasers, this is essentially the same 7-1/4″ corded circular saw that they’ve offered for some time.  Features include a bevel adjustible from 0 to 51.5 degrees with positive stops at 45 and 51.5 degrees (”for compound rafter cuts,” says Ryobi), a spindle lock, a dust chute to facilitate vacuum hookup (for almost dustless cutting), and a 10′ power cord.

As usual, it’s available exclusively at Home Depot, currently for $69 according to their website.  That’s a little less than the Skil, though careful shopping puts them pretty much in the same cart.

The Dual-Laser Circular Saw [Ryobi]
“Street” Pricing  [Home Depot, which is chock full of the only place you can get Ryobi]

Here’s an idea we’re surprised more manufacturers haven’t thought of: a portable fan that’ll run off your tool batteries.  Ryobi’s P3300 portable fan is just that — a two-speed (1200/1400 RPM) fan that runs (a claimed) 6 hours on a single 18V “One+” series Ni-Cd battery charge.. 

It’s been an especially hot summer all over the country, and we’re sure you (like us) have been seeking any way at all to stay cool.  If you’re inside in the shop, you’ve probably got a couple of fans around.  But what if you’re out in the field — or even just in the driveway — where you’re out of reach of easy power?  Or what if you want to drag the fan around with you under the car?  This looks like the ticket.

We wonder how long it’ll be before we see other manufacturers adding this to their cordless lines.

We couldn’t find pricing for you yet, as the P3300 seems to have just barely hit the Ryobi website.  (In fact, the 360-degree view feature doesn’t seem to have been implemented yet.)  We can, however, tell you that you’ll find it at Home Depot — and probably only at Home Depot.  We’d also bet that it’ll be reasonably priced.  Say what you will about Ryobi, but don’t accuse them of overpricing.

The P3300 18V Portable Fan [Ryobi]