The specialty pens folks would like you to use in the shop get pretty amusing — take the Inka pen for instance. For $13 you can get the Inka Pen made from 304 stainless steel and carbon fiber with a pressurized ink cartridge (like those in the Fisher Space Pen), allowing the pen to write wet or dry at any angle or on rough wood. The integrated PDA stylus is just the equivalent of a laser. Are they serious? You could buy an entire box of square shop pencils for that.
A Viton o-ring seals up the closed pen (3.15″ long and 0.375″ diameter). If you’re in a hurry, you can just pull it apart and you have a stubby pen. When it’s fully assembled, it’s 5″ long. It fits the hand well, and the stainless gives it a nice heft.
For a crack-smoking $40, you can pick up the Inka Special Titanium version that weighs in at only 0.45 oz. Or again get a shop pencil that they often give out free at the local home center with the purchase of 50 cents or more.
I grew up on Lego, and loved them as kid. I did a double-take when I saw these boxes, though I might not have ever noticed it growing up. However, having seen my share of combines and tractors, I wonder who got the wires crossed in packaging and put these in the “City” category.
If you live in Iowa perhaps these are a common sight on the cityscape scene, but I must at least give them credit for offering the machines of the farm persuasion at all. If kids aren’t as likely to be exposed to hand and power tools at a young age, they’re much less likely to have any hands-on with tractors and massive farm equipment later in life.
Props to Lego for the kits, whatever the moniker. It’s a lot of cool for $35.
This innocuous little starfish will keep sliding glass doors from opening too far, especially ones where the door slides on the outside and you can’t use a bar to secure it. The SecureIt can also keep windows from being opened too far, much like a window lock.
If you choose to hang stuff from the SecureIt, the 3-3/8″ suction cup can hold 50 pounds. You can affix the 4″-diameter, 2″-thick SecureIt to any smooth, clean, and dry surface. If you need to remove it, simply pull the tab.
Available in Sky, Sea Mist Green, and Clear, a pack of two SecureIts goes for $20.
We’re sure you’re sick of Hyde products for now, but we’re saving the best (read: most ridiculous) for last: the Dual-Action Flex Roller. Hyde claims that with their new roller you’ll spread paint more evenly, paint faster, and work more effectively.
Most Toolmongers probably just grab any oil that’s close at hand while drilling into metal, but if I actually bought cutting oil, I have to admit that I’d probably buy Bad Dog Drool cutting lubricant — not because I’m sold on how well it works, but because I couldn’t resist the awesome name. Just imagine the look on your buddy’s face when you ask him to fetch some Bad Dog Drool.
Use Bad Dog Drool to keep cutters cool and minimize wear when boring through metal. This “thick and juicy” cutting lubricant — Bad Dog Tools likens it to St. Bernard drool — stays in place even on inclined surfaces.
On their website, an 8oz bottle of Bad Dog Drool will run you about $10 plus $5 shipping.
Looking to startle house guests — or impress Toolmonger friends hanging out in the kitchen instead of the shop? If so, you’re likely the target market for the possibly-vaporware Pizza-Pro 3000. And before you ask: No, it’s not motorized. (Though we imagine a little time in the shop could fix this, erm, design flaw.)
Offered along with dozens of other not-yet-available products on the WorldWideFred website, this appears to be simply a molded plastic circ saw shape attached to the top of a standard wheel-type pizza cutter. Yet it inexplicably draws our attention.
(Thanks, by the way, to the dozen or so of you who submitted this via our newly repaired Submit-a-Tool link.)
Ever wish that the wood you need for that new shed or deck would just, say, wash up on the beach? For those living on the coast of Kent (two hours south of London), that dream has come true. As you see in the CNN video report above, tons and tons of wood lost from a Russian cargo ship in the English channel has begun reaching shore — where it’s quickly loaded into vehicles by eager locals.
CNN says local law requires that everyone who scavenges the wood must fill out paperwork and wait a year before using the wood, but as you can see that doesn’t seem to phase those in need of project supplies. (And hell, it wouldn’t phase me, either.)
So clearly this chase isn’t going well for the running man. That said, I can’t help but wonder exactly what’s happening in this video car-tech-wise. I suppose all the sparks coming from the driver’s-side front wheel well must be due to a missing wheel as driving on the brake disc would definitely produce that kind of light show. And I’m guessing that eventually all the sparks managed to get into fuel or other flammable materials to create the CNN-described “fireball.”
But that looks to me like a ’90s Chrysler, which means it’s likely front-wheel-drive. If so, it’s pretty impressive that the driver manages to keep it in a lane (for the most part) minus a front wheel. Do you suppose the car stopped because the fuel tank emptied, or do you think the guy just crapped his pants when he saw/felt the flames and decided a foot chase would be, um, safer.
Part push pin, part staple, TAK push pins might just be the solution you need for stringing your holiday lights. The oversize head with U-shaped channel captures the wire and holds it in place. TAK push pins aren’t just for lights — they’ll hold your bulletins just like other push pins, but with the dual pins, the paper won’t rotate unexpectedly on you.
You can pick up a set of twenty TAK push pins for about $7.
Talk about everything having lasers! These lasers are for your garage, to help you park, of course — at least they get some cool points for looking like turrets from a B-movie spaceship. The motion detector spots you pulling into the garage, and this little unit zaps your car with a point of laser light to let you know whether you’ve pulled in sideways, again.
When tool companies apply their expertise to develop stuff outside of their core product line, they can come up with some pretty cool results. Alumicolor makes precision measurement and drafting tools out of extruded aluminum; we’ve posted about their scales in the past. With that same manufacturing process they’ve made message clips that’re interesting, different, and quirky — we have to hand it to ‘em though, it’s a great Toolmonger overkill. And with these extruded aluminum dominoes with photo-anodized dots, they’ve tipped the scale!
Sometimes Toolmonger news just rolls into my e-mail! Rod sent the following “press release” along with the picture above:
Just thought I would show you a picture of the new nail gun DeWalt just came out with…this baby is a Man’s Tool!
It can drive a 6-D nail thru a 2 X 4 at 200 yards.
This makes construction a real breeze — you can sit in your lawn chair and build a fence.
Just get the wife and kids to hold the fence boards in place while you sit back, relax with a cold drink — when they have the board in the right place, just fire away.
With the hundred-round magazine, you can build a fence with a minimum of reloading.
After a day of fence-building with the new DeWalt rapid-fire nail gun, the wife won’t ask you fix or build anything else.
We likey. Just make sure the fam is wearing safety goggles, and some Kevlar.
Tool theft costs you twice — you lose the value of the tool and you lose the use of the tool. What if there was a way that your tools could tell you they were being stolen? Lock the Siren Padlock on your toolbox or directly onto your tool, and it’ll alert you if somebody who doesn’t have the key starts monkeying with your stuff.
Sometimes we find better uses for our tools than the manufacturer had in mind when the design specs were originally laid out. Loading up this toolbox with tools made it too heavy for a second floor apartment — so we filled it with toys that needed a bit of organization which turned it into ultimate mobile toybox.
It might not be the most macho use of the 4 in 1 toolbox but for the household it sits in this is noble work indeed. The best part is the wheels and travel luggage handle that lets this rolling fun-time box go wherever needed.
Some Toolmongers can open a bottle with practically anything: this Appalachian Trail pocket knife, for instance, or the edge of a bar. For myself, the choice of tool is critical — so I opt for a pope bottle opener, which makes a great conversation piece as well as a functional answer to my need for refreshment. If you want a popener for yourself or for your favorite beer drinker, you can find at least one online.
Craftsman has thrown down the gauntlet. OK, maybe more like a dish glove. Or a used latex work glove. Here’s the deal: if you can find “a better value at the same or lower price” with all the features of various Craftsman lawn mowers and tractors, they’ll “give it to you free.” Before you go diving for Google, here’s the fine print:
You’ll also find a few kicker requirements in the flyer, such as a “Die Hard battery” (so the mower you find has to be made by Sears) and a “free trip charge for in-home warranty service during the first year**.” What do the asterisks mean? “See sales associate for details.” This whole game reminds me a bit of the prizes Steve Martin offered as a carnie in The Jerk.
Oh yeah, you’ve only got until the 26th. And you can’t participate if you live in California. Unlucky you.
CNN’s running video of some clueless guy in a white truck — dragging a trailer with a zero-turn lawn mower on it, no less — leading police on a merry chase. Toolmongers will note that though the trailer fishtails pretty badly, the guy doesn’t lose control until the mower comes loose and slides to the back of the trailer, rendering it un-drivable.
Not to spoil it for everyone, but it ends, um, badly. The trailer jackknifes, the mower hops off and smacks into the truck, and the whole mess grinds to a halt on an overpass. Predictably, the guy runs and is chased down (and arrested) by police.
Lesson learned: Don’t run from the cops — especially in a crappy truck while towing a trailer. But if you do, make sure your mower is tied down firmly. And try to go a little easier on the wheel, yeah?
