When the proud day finally comes, and your son/daughter/mother/girlfriend loved one is finally moving out, what tools do they need?  Whether you donate some of your extras or head off to the big box in search of a tool kit, you’ll have to decide which tools are the essentials for someone moving out on their own.  From previous posts, we obviously all agree that they’ll need a knife, at least a utility knife — but what about wrenches, pliers, and other handy life-saving tools?

Let’s say you’re limited to what can fit in a small tool bag, like the size of an overnight bag, or an average-sized men’s boot.  What critical tools go with your loved one, to get them through the shock of not being able to borrow yours?  And which tools do you wish would fit in the boot?  Let us know in comments.

Long time TM reader Tracy writes: “Concrete anchor bolts are great for pulling blind bearings — for example, wheel bearings on a motorcycle.  It’s hard to get a bearing puller behind these kinds of bearings since there’s usually a spacer pushed up tight against them.  Instead, you can insert a concrete anchor like this into the bearing, expand it by tightening the nut, then using a drift from the opposite side of the wheel to tap it out along with the bearing.”

Tracy’s full of kick-ass tips like this, and he posted a dozen or so to the TM photo pool.  Check out the pool for more.

Toolmonger’s Photo Pool [Flickr]

Whether they love it or hate it, almost every Toolmonger has a can of WD-40 on a shelf somewhere around the shop.  Now the Tacoma Wheelmen’s Bicycle club has assembled a list of 1,997 “unofficial” uses for everyone’s favorite water dispersant.  Take a gander, but beware of #389: “Makes deadbolt locks work better.”  You don’t want to go there.

(Thanks, Mr. South, for the great CC-licensed photo.)

2,000 Unofficial Uses For WD-40 [Tacoma Wheelmen’s Club] 

Long-time TM reader Tracy posted a picture of this tip to Toolmonger’s photo pool this week.  He writes: “If you’re inserting a spark plug and you’re worried about cross-threading, this simple trick is kind of handy.  Simply slip a short length of fuel line over the plug and use it as a wrench to insert and turn the plug.  If the plug begins to cross-thread and bind up, the fuel line will slip and you won’t be able to thread the plug in further.  If it goes in cleanly you can pull on the fuel line to pop it off, then finish tightening with a spark plug wrench.”

Rock on — great idea!  Check the pool for some more of Tracy’s great tips.

Toolmonger’s Photo Pool [Flickr]

TM reader Casey tipped us to this interesting guide on the proper handling of li-ion batteries.  Some tips you’ll likely already know — “avoid fully discharging,” for example — but others are less obvious, like leaving li-ions at 40% charge when storing them for long periods.  At any rate, it’s a good read for anyone who’s invested in li-ion power tools.

Four Tips To Extend Li-Ion Battery Life [Spicy Gadget Roll]

The next time you need to temporarily plug a fluid line when you’re working under the hood — like, for example, the a transmission cooler line like we had to deal with this week when replacing a radiator — grab one of your latex shop gloves and rubber-band it over the end.  It’ll keep the fluid in the tube — and out of the engine compartment — and you can throw the whole mess away when you’re done.

There’s another name for engine hoists that indicates their wider utility: shop cranes.  TM reader Monty writes: “I have a bad back, so I use my engine hoist/shop crane in my woodworking shop to move equipment and projects.”

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After years of getting all my gloves dirty — then tearing my hands up moving furniture or other “clean” items bare-handed — I finally learned to buy a separate set to keep as “clean” gloves.

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While we’re sure there are pros out there who could tell you far more than we can about car stereo installation, we’ve installed more than a few over the years.  And we’ve learned a few things about the process.  Read on past the jump to learn how to save a ton of cash by skipping high-dollar shop installations — and avoiding costly noob mistakes.

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TM reader Teacher commented on a post recently, sharing his experience in doing a brake job:

“Last week I changed the front brakes on my 2005 Grand Caravan.  Bendix brake pads cost me $49.  The local Dodge dealer and another garage both wanted $150+ do to the same thing.  The only problem was that the calipers were held onto the brackets by bolts that required a 7mm hex head.   Guess which size is commonly left out of sets of Allen wrenches?  The jerk at the Dodge place first told me he didn’t know what size hex head the calipers took.  When I asked if his manager would know, he fessed up to it being a 7mm, but had no idea where I could get one.  Of course they would be glad to do the brake job for me.  Nope.  Good old NAPA.  The 3/8″ drive hex bit in 7mm was $4.99, USA made.”

If you’re new to auto repair — but love the idea of saving lots of dough doing it yourself — read on past the jump for a few tips on locating the info you need to get the job done.  And if you’re an old-hand at car maintenance, jump in and share your experience via comments!

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You never know when you’ll find a great deal, but it helps to know where to look.  One forehead-smackingly great place to start is Home Depot’s “busted-ass packaging table,” more commonly known as the “clearance item table.”

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Long time TM reader Stuey emailed us today with his analysis of Craftsman’s Father’s Day sale specials.  He’s found a few interesting discrepancies, especially when comparing the “sale” prices to standard catalog prices.  In short: many “sale” items are actually sold for similar prices every day in the catalog.  Read on past the jump for details.

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Sick of trying to manipulate those little jumpers on PC boards?  Try using a hemostat.  My favorites are the slightly-curved kind which are so easy to slip into the tight spaces in most computers and project cases.  They also lock when you close them, so once you’ve got that jumper snagged, you can let go and use your hand to move the ’stats as necessary to extract them.

I have a handful of sets that my father gave me.  The small, curved ones live in my computer tool kit while the rest are in a toolbox drawer out in the shop.

They’re pretty easy to come by as well.  You can find them at many large flea markets — that’s where my dad picked his up — or you can find them from all sorts of vendors online where they start at around $3 each.  (You can find them for much less, but you’ll have to do some brick-and-mortar digging.)

(Thanks to oskay for this great CC-licensed photo.)

Hemostats [Google Products]

Like chess and racquetball, the procedure for hanging wallpaper is deciptively simple and remarkably difficult to master.  Thankfully the folks over at This Old House took the time to pump New York pro wallpaper hanger John Gregoras for his best tricks, acquired over his twenty years of installing the sticky stuff.

From layout to assembling your shopping list to actual installation, this is a great how-to post loaded with photos.

The Best Techniques For Hanging Wallpaper [This Old House]

Weldo commented on our “Hot or Not? Metal Chop Saws For Home Shop Use” post — where I lamented how the mess they make keeps me from having one in the shop — with a kick-ass solution:

I keep some paperboard (like what cereal boxes are made of) over a set of welding magnets behind them to catch the debris.  That way you just peel off the paperboard and let the filings fall into the trash.

Why didn’t I think of that?  Awesome, and I’m totally going to try it.

(Thanks to quinnums for this great CC-licensed photo.)

I learned this the hard way with my portable recording rig.  Picture this: I’m squatting at the back of a dark theater setting up my rig in almost complete darkness.  I really need to see to hook up the power, so I grab my trusty (black) Mini Mag-Lite.  But before I can turn it on, I drop it.  It’s black, the floor is black, and for that matter, everything is black.  It’s gone.  Doh!

Look, I love Mag-Lites as much as the next guy.  But buying a black flashlight strikes me along the same lines as painting your bush plane green with leaf-shaped brown spots — it’s just a bad idea.  Buy the silver ones!  Or blue.  Or red.  Just not black!  Black flashlights sort of defeat the purpose of having a flashlight; if you can’t find it, you can’t use it.

Jason writes: “I always have trouble combining the different dado blades to come up with just the right width for the job at hand — cutting dados in 3/4″ for shelves or 24/32″ undersized wood, etc.  It can be hard to get the blades and shims just right without a lot of removing and reassembly of the different blade combinations, so I came up with this trick: once I get the right combination dialed in, I use some of my wife’s nail polish to mark each blade and shim in that particular blade assembly.  If I need to cut grooves for another thickness of wood, I mark that stack in a different color.  Then I create a ‘key’ with the nail polish and a marker on the dado blade case.  In the future whenever I want to cut, say, a 24/32″ groove, instead of trying different combinations of chippers and shims all I have to do is look for the blades with the yellow markings on them and install them.  It saves lots of time — and bruised knuckles.”