I’ll admit that I’m a total sucker for these kind of articles.  I actually keep a search out on Google to find them.  Why?  They remind me of why I got interested in making things in the first place.  Listen to Cadillac Michigan High School freshman Curtis Baum:

“I was looking at magazines and found a clock that looked cool, but it broke.  I tried it again and it broke,” he said.  “So I decided to make my own design.  I like fire and flames and thought if I liked it I would build it.”

Not only did he build a flame clock, he entered it in the Michigan Industrial Technology Education Society regional show — and won second place.

So, Curtis, here’s a message from your (new) friends at Toolmonger: fire and flames rock, and so do you.

Cadillac Students Take Their Skills to the Industrial Art Level [Cadillac News]

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

We set up a Flickr group to give all you Toolmongers a chance to show off your favorite tools, your projects, and your shops.  We kicked things off by adding some additional photos of our Guitar Hero controller project from a while back, and we’ll try to hit the shop tonight and snag a few more photos for you.

But you’re the stars of this photo group.  We want to see what you’re working on and what tools you’re using to do it!  Got a favorite drill that’s taken a beating and still works?  You grandfather’s hand saw?  A new tool you bought yesterday and haven’t had a chance to use yet?  Shoot a quick picture and upload it. 

We’ll select some of our favorites from time to time and feature them in posts here on Toolmonger, but you can always see all — and comment on — all the photos in the Toolmonger Flickr pool.  And you’ll also see the five most recent photos in center column here on the blog.

Sharing your pictures with us via Flickr is easy.  If you’re already a Flickr member (it’s free) you simply join the Toolmonger group and you can add your photos at will.  If you’re not a Flickr member, you’ll need to sign up, but relax — they don’t ask for a lot of personal information and the service is easy to use.

If you have questions or concerns, just drop us a line and we’ll do what we can to help out.  In the meantime, we look forward to getting a look at your shop and tools!

From the Carroll County Times:

Tom Miley, technology education teacher and adviser of the woodworking club for the New Windsor Middle School Community Learning Center, said that rather than have the after-school students make another trinket, he wanted to offer a bigger project.

Apparently Mr. Miley’s “bigger projects” included two Adirondack-style chairs and three wooden wishing wells, which the New Windsor Middle School students built successfully over the last five weeks.  The students’ work will be auctioned at the New Windsor Fire Carnival starting June 4th to benefit the local volunteer fire department.  The auction ends June 8th, one day before the end of the carnival.

We always enjoy stories of the people who take time to introduce young people to the art of working with their hands, so if you’re in the New Windsor area, why not drop by and bid on the furniture?  You’d not only help a good cause, but you’d also help show some enterprising middle school students that woodworking is a skill that lasts a lifetime.

Students Make Furniture [Caroll County Times]

(Thanks to KiltBear for the great cc-licensed photo above, which isn’t one of the kids’ chairs, but is a great example of an Adirondack used as it should be.)

Make no bones about it: though we keep our advertising sales and editorial work entirely separate, it’s advertisers who pay our bills and make it possible for us to continue bringing you your daily tool fix.  So with that in mind, we’d like to say a special thank you to Harbor Freight who recently bought the ad you see in the right sidebar.

As you can see from previous posts, we were fans of Harbor Freight long before they bought an ad, and will continue to be fans long after they move on — though not too soon, we hope.  (And we know from Interesting Post clicks that you’re fans, too.)  Ad or no ad, we’ll keep posting the cool (and cheap) stuff we find there, ragging on them for selling rubber frogs and Suduku games, and buying too much stuff from them every time we visit the store.

Anyway, thanks again to Harbor Freight for paying some of the TM bills, and be sure to check out their weekly sales — which are handily linked to the ad.

Now back to your schedule Toolmonger programming…

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow morning, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

Come shoot the bull and drink some beer with us tonight at The Page in San Francisco.  We’ll be there at 8 p.m. with some free Maker Faire passes for the first 10 people who show — or maybe a few more, too. 

And even if you can’t make the meetup, stop by Maker Faire and look for us inside the Pavilion where we’ll have a variety of drill drivers from various manufacturers for you to help us test.

The Page [AOL CityGuide]

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

Our friends over at Make are working hard today to get Maker Faire set up and running, and it looks like it’s going to be an incredible event.  If you’re in the Bay Area and you miss this, you’re going to kick yourself.

This year’s Faire is at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, and gates open this Saturday at 10 a.m.  You’ll find us in the pavillion conducting a drill/driver test — which you can help with! — so be sure to stop by and say hello.  And, if you have time, we’ll be at The Page in San Francisco Friday night at 8 p.m. for a meetup to shoot the bull about tools, drink some cheap beer, and distribute a few free Maker Faire tickets.

The picture above, by the way, is of Make’s own fire truck which is already parked at the Faire.  After seeing it, Sean and I have concluded that we must own a fire truck at some point.  We’re already on the WiFi looking for one.  If you have any leads, drop us a line via the contact page.  (It doesn’t even have to run.  In fact, our favorite deal would be the “haul it off special.”)

Maker Faire: Getting Ready [Make]
Toolmonger Meetup [TM]

As we’ve mentioned here and in the podcast, we’re going to be at Maker Faire in San Mateo this weekend.  While the Faire itself looks to be pretty exciting, we’re even more excited about hanging out with some of you Toolmongers and doing two of our favorite things: shooting the bull about tools and drinking beer.

With that in mind, we’ll be at The Page — which we’re reliably informed is a dive bar where the beer is cheap and the decorations are cheaper — in San Francisco at 8 p.m. this Friday.  Plus, we’ll have two free Maker Faire day passes each for the first ten of you who show up.  So bring a friend, or just go both days yourself — your choice.

And even if you can’t make the meetup, stop by Maker Faire and look for us inside the Pavillion where we’ll have a variety of drill drivers from various manufacturers for you to help us test.

The Page [AOL CityGuide]

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes later today, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

We receive a lot of submissions via the Submit a Tool link, many of which we’ve already written about.  But to us that just indicates that these are tools you really appreciate and use regularly.  We thought we’d share a list of some of the most recent duplicates in case you happened to miss ‘em the first time ’round:

• Keith recommends the Alligator Lopper.  We originally wrote about the ‘Lopper almost a year ago, but brought it back recently for a stint in the Hot or Not hotbox — with interesting results.  [Product Site] [Street Pricing] [Via Amazon] [What's this?]
• Pierce recommends Kobalt’s portable compressed CO2 regulator/tank for nailers which we originally featured in Hot or Not.  Check out the comments on the original post for all kinds of ideas on how to adapt paintball and/or scuba gear to this application. [Product Site]
• Brent recommends Craftsman’s ratcheting screwdrivers, writing: “This is a super-handy tool for small toolboxes/car trunk kits.”  This was orignally a reader find as well, sent to us by Rick.  Other readers recommended the Snap-on version.  It’s also been mentioned over at Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools.[Product Site] [The Snap-on Version]
• Joe M recommends the Dremel Multi-Tool, and if you happen to be one of the three or four people on the planet who doesn’t own one of these, you need one right now.  We loved the Dremel Stylus, but as Joe says, don’t forget that the plain old base model tool is still awesome — and the best place to start with a rotary tool kit. [Product Site] [Street Pricing] [MultiPro 400 XPR Rotary Tool Kit" target="_blank">Via Amazon] [What's this?]
• Brian recommends another oldie-but-goodie, the forearm forklift.  These straps evenly spread the load of heavy items across your arms, allowing you to carry much heavier items than you normally could. [Product Site] [Street Pricing] [Above All Company Forearm Forklift Lifting Straps, 2-Pack #L74995CN" target="_blank">Via Amazon] [What's this?]

As always, we appreciate all submissions.  If you’ve got a minute, why not send us your latest find?

Stephen – our resident Dealmonger – has found so many great deals over the last few days that we decided to let you in on all of them right now.  Your regularly-scheduled Toolmonger programming will return this afternoon.

In the meantime, we’ll be in the shop catching up on a few projects and (of course) testing tools.

We’ve linked to a number of discount (read: cheap-ass) tool deals from Dodgetopia in the past, but we’ve avoided them for a bit recently because we’ve heard grumblings from some buyers regarding their recent reliability.  When we checked their site today for a tool we had on backorder, we discovered the front page empty except for a lone message that reads:

DodgeTopia.com regrets to announce that due to the incompetence of our distributor we are ceasing trading. Over the last year it has become apparent to us that their negative attitude, constant order errors, inability to keep track of or order stock, and continual lack of support from their management is not something we wish to continue to pursue.  Please be assured that all orders still classified as “pending” are being fully investigated as to their current status.  Any orders placed after April 14, 2007 have been credited. We would like to thank all of our customers for their continued support and patience.

Chalk one more discount tool seller as belly up.  I guess we may have to write off that set of $3 pliers we ordered a few months back.

Notice To Customers [Dodgetopia]

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.