We’re planning our schedule for the Tool Talk and One Beer Project podcasts and would like your opinion on future guests and projects.  Specifically:

What guests would you like to hear on Tool Talk?  We really enjoyed Ed Fowler — as did you judging from our email — but what other people would you enjoy?

What projects would you like to hear about in OBP?  Or maybe a better question is: as the neighborhood “tool dude,” what “quick fixes” are you constantly explaining to your friends and neighbors?  Let us know in comments.

We appreciate any suggestions you have, and remember: these are “valid comments” that count as an entry into our Ridgid pneumatic giveaway!

Jon writes: “My wife and I are gradually learning to repair and build things.  (Actually, she seems well on the road to becoming a cabinetmaker; I’ve maintained my ‘advantage’ by carrying heavy things and reaching high shelves without mechanical aids.)  She recently build a hinged storage box, and we’ve been putting up shelves and a catwalk — for our cats.  We don’t have a saw — or much room in our NYC apartment for any floor-based equipment.  What say the Toolmongers?  What’s the best general-purpose handsaw for wood?”

I’ll have to admit first that I’ve never actually bought a hand saw.  I have a few that my father handed down to me — one of which even came from his father — so I’m a bit out of touch. 

What do you Toolmongers recommend?  Let us know in comments.

Rob wrote today to ask if we’d had any experience with Harbor Freight’s $16 stainless steel solar garden lights.  He writes: “I was wondering if you’ve had any experiences with the stainless steel solar garden lights that HF sells at 2/$16.  I tried a similar set of solar lights from Wal-Mart last year and as so disappointed that I returned them within a week.”

Sadly, we’ve never looked at ‘em, so we thought we’d pass the question on to the Toolmonger community.  Have you tried these out, or do you know of another source of reasonably-priced garden illumination?

Stainless Steel Solar Garden Lights, Set of Two [Harbor Freight]

Stuey writes: “I recently ordered Irwin GrooveLock pliers and Vise-Grip 7LW pliers, and I already have a few Crescent wrenches.  All three tools — at least to the best of my knowledge – can turn a fastener or nut without marring its finish. I’m curious to see what preferences you Toolmongers in regard to these tools.  Disregarding the plumbing advantage for tongue and groove pliers, it seems that the three pliers are interchangeable when it comes to standard sized nuts or bolts.  Let’s say you have a single nut to loosen 1/2 a turn before (or after) spinning it by hand. Which pair of adjustable pliers (they’re all the same length) would you reach for and why?”

Admittedly, I’m pretty reluctant to use pliers on a standard-sized fastener in most any circumstance — save when I’ve already destroyed it by other means.  I generally use pliers for gripping non-standard items and use properly-sized wrenches or sockets for nuts and bolts.

But that said, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes you’ve gotta use what’s available to you.  In those cases, my first choice would be an adjustable wrench for nuts and bolts and the GrooveLocks for non-standard items.  I’m a pretty big fan of the GrooveLocks — I’ve got a pair that never seems to make it all the way back to the toolbox.

What say you?  Let us know in comments.

Eli’s a long-time friend of Toolmonger, and comments pretty regularly hereabouts.  He’s moving to Austrailia soon, and finds himself in a bit of a fix regarding all his beloved power tools, both corded and cordless.

He writes: “Since RIDGID doesn’t make an Oz voltage charger, I’ve checked the Australian site of a certain online bidding service and come to the realization that tools are really pricey there.  It might make sense after all to bring ALL of my tools with me when we move there, even with the hassle of having to use special converters. I’m pretty sure they are 240 volts @ 50 cycles, and we are 120 volts @ 60 cycles.”

“So I’ve been looking at step down transformers, and working out all the wattage of my tools.  I thought maybe there was an electrical engineer or Australian ‘Monger among us that could help me determine safe working loads for the different stuff.  For example, my Makita power planer is 4 amps, which as I understand it translates to about 440 watts (amps x current=watts).  But I’m wondering how high a wattage transformer I should have for safety under load.  A grinder or any saw or a thickness planer would all be different under load.  I don’t mind buying several and hard mounting them right to the tool itself for the big ones, and keeping it with a U.S. extension cord in a bucket or something for the hand tools.”

We’ve contacted some of the manufacturers to see about conversion kits with no luck, but we wondered if some of you might have ideas for alternate solutions to the problem.  To help out, we’ll kick out a Black & Decker AutoWrench to a single commenter of Eli’s selection in this comment thread.  (And if you don’t care about the AutoWrench, we’d appreciate it if you’d offer your wisdom anyway.  Remember, we Toolmongers have to take care of our own!)

We’re getting a little tired of doing scroll work with a jigsaw, so we’re thinking about picking up a small dedicated scroll saw.  We’ve got a few coming in for review, but we’d love to hear your recommendations.

You’ll note that there’s a pretty big difference in price between the two in the photo above.  The Task Force on the left goes for $99, while the Delta Shopmaster is marked $219.  While I’m sure the Delta’s worth more, is it worth the extra $119?

Let us know in comments, especially if you have one that you’re happy with.

We’ll be the first to admit that we have a pretty strong preference regarding the quality of auto parts stores — at least in our area.  That got us to thinking about how the quality we perceive locally might well vary significantly from state to state and locality to locality.

So we thought we’d ask you: What’s your favorite auto parts store, and why do you like it so much?

Here in North Texas, we’ve had nothing but bad luck with AutoZone.  While the stores are ubiquitous, the parts aren’t.  We had difficultly finding basic parts for a variety of common vehicles at our local stores, and it’s been our experience that most of the people at the shop can offer very little in terms of personal experience (read: ideas beyond what’s in the computer).  Our customer service experiences have been mediocre at Napa, but they’ve almost always had the parts we need — which is what really counts.

Actually, we’ve had the best luck with O’Reilly’s here.  Generally there’s at least one person in the store that was able to point us in the right direction with some of our more difficult questions, and they stock a lot of parts.  Best yet, they can almost always ship between stores on the same day, which is a big help.

So what do you think?  Let us know in comments.

We’ve written about gloves with impact protection and even gloves with lights on the fingers, but they all seem kinda gimmicky to us.  Realizing that we — like you, probably — do more than just work on the car, what’s your favorite shop glove 

Maybe I should be a little more specific: by “shop glove,” I mean gloves other than the classic “work glove” — which is great, but doesn’t offer anywhere near enough dexterity for most smaller work. 

Right now, we seem to favor the one pictured above — Mechanix’ “original.”  We’ve worn out three pairs over the last few months, but I’m glad to say that it’s the gloves that are worn out and not our hands.  The Mechanix gloves seem to offer a nice balance between durability and dexterity, though they are a little pricey.

But we haven’t tried ‘em all.  I suppose what we should really do is put together a test.  Let us know your favorites in comments, and we’ll schedule a test of as many of ‘em as we can find.

nrChris commented on today’s TV Tonight post regarding Lost’s return to TV tonight and speculated on how they managed to build all those shelters and such by hand with virtually no tools.  He ended his post with the question, “How well would the Toolmonger readers hold up on a deserted island?”

That got me to thinking.  If you were to find yourself in the position of having to build everything you need from scratch, what five tools would you choose to have with you?

Admittedly, I’d say that unless you’re extremely creative — methane production from domestication of local animals and a methane-converted generator? — power tools are probably out.

Anyway, if you’ve got a minute, get your MacGyver on and drop us a comment with your list and justification for it.  And remember, every valid comment on the Toolmonger site serves as an entry into our RIDGID MaxSelect Giveaway.

Despite the fact that everyone in the blogging business starts out every single conversation with us by asking, “Why aren’t you guys doing referrals?” we’ve held off on doing so.

Why?  Because we’ve always felt that we can best serve readers by remaining completely separated from their purchase process.  We write what we think, not what we think’ll make you buy some tool.  In fact, if you hear us actually recommend buying something, it’s because we’ve got one and we love it.

But today it struck me that it might make more sense to ask you rather than just assume that you have strong feelings about this.  Does it matter to you?  Do you like our Froogle links for pricing?  How’d you feel about an additional direct link to the tool for sale at Amazon, assuming it didn’t change our writing at all?

I’m concerned, but I’d like to hear your thoughts.  If you would, please take the time to let me know in comments.  Or, if you’d like a more private line, just use the contact us form.

We’re putting together some upcoming groups of test tools, and we’d like your input.  Last year we saw the widespread acceptance of lithium-ion as well as some crazy new hand tool designs.  What’s on the docket for 2007 in your opinion?

More specifically, we know that a lot of your are pros in one or more tool-related fields.  What do you imagine will be the next big thing in your field this year?

We’ve got some of our own ideas, but we can’t wait to hear yours.

When I was a kid, my Dad took me to the flea market pretty regularly, and we used to paw through hundreds of boxes of tools searching for stuff that’d work well at home.  In fact, my first Craftsman toolkit came entirely from the flea market.  Sure, you can take ‘em back for replacement, but for some reason I’ve never needed to. 

On a recent trip to the “dirt mall” here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX area, I discovered that most of the vendors now want premium money (read: new price) for any “lifetime warranty” tools, and subsequently their selection seems to be pretty stifled.  I do, however, have a Porter Cable PortaBand that came from the flea market.

I know some of you are shrewd bargain seekers.  What do you look for at the flea market now, tool-wise?

As you might imagine, I have quite a few tools.  Hell, I had quite a few tools before Toolmonger, and afterward — well, I have the same problem you people do: Every time I see a great “reader find,” I end up running to the store to pick one up.

But I don’t have a good set of precision screwdrivers.  I have a couple of sets of relatively crappy precision screwdrivers, but I’m ready to invest a few bucks and pick up some that’ll outlast me — know what I mean?

So what do you Toolmongers out there have to say about brands when it comes to the little ‘drivers?  I know Wiha makes a couple of decent-looking sets, and there’re always the major-manufacturer standbys.  But do any of you have a set that your really love?

Rick wrote in with a question which really got me thinking this morning.  He writes: “Here’s the deal:  The wife bought me the 137 piece Craftsman Mechanic’s Toolset.  (Don’t ask how I know.)  She actually paid $86 something as there was some promotion going the day she bought it.  That said, It’s now $99.  But I noticed that also for $99 they have a 155 piece set.  Now I’m not usually one to go by the number of pieces solely, but I did notice that the 155 piece set had a more complete 6-point metric socket set (6-18mm instead of just 6-15mm) as well as twice as many combination wrenches (12 versus 6) and I figured – for the same price – I may as well get the bigger set.

“So last night I went and bought the 155 piece set — I figure she wasn’t going to have time to exchange it, and they’re both charged to our Sears card, so it makes no difference.  My idea is that after the holidays I’d return the 137 piece set for a full refund as she still has the receipt (I hope).

“Now you know the background, so here’s my question:  I noticed that the 137 piece has something going for it — the fact that it’s got the new ‘higher visibility’ laser etching versus the 155 piece kit’s standard hard-to-read engraving.  My question to the Toolmongers out there is: Would you take the 137 piece with the easier to read sizes, or the larger 155 piece set with the harder to read, but “old reliable” engraved sizes?”

I’ll admit that as a Toolmonger, my first thought was, “I have some of each of these sockets, and I don’t really see that much difference.”  But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t help thinking that I have far better advice to give Rick than “don’t worry about the engraving.”

(more…)

Brad’s submitted tools in the past, and today he asked for your help.  He writes: “I’m considering buying the RIDGID EB4424 oscillating edge belt/spindle sander, and was wondering if you guys (or your readers) could offer any insight into this tool’s performance/capabilities.  Thanks!”

(more…)

Rob asks: “I have a Craftsman 18.0V cordless drill.  I REALLY like it.  Yesterday, Sears had a pack of 19.2V batteries on sale.  Can I use these in my drill without hurting it?  Yes, they fit, but I don’t want to damage my drill.”

This is a great question.  My initial thought is that a 1.2V difference won’t do any short term damage and shouldn’t do any long term damage.  There’s some precedence for this in the industry.  For example, Milwaukee recommends its new li-ion V18 batteries as “backwards compatible” with their 18V tools, though the V18s are actually 20V batteries.  Competitive robot builders often over-volt motors, though they’re willing to trade reliability for performance — something I’m guessing Milwaukee wouldn’t be so hot on.

Charging could be another issue, though if you’re referring to the 19.2V batteries that drive the Craftsman drill/driver we’ve got in the shop here, they’re old Ni-Cds, just like the 18V.

Anyway, I hope you don’t mind, Rob, but I thought I’d kick this out to the readers to see what input they might have.  If there’s still a lot of question come next week, we’ll jump on the phone and see what we can find out.