C’mon — tell me you can’t think of a fun application for this $10 old-timey “oooga” horn from Harbor Freight! Think about it: it’s a 12V horn, so you could probably swap it into your car without too much hassle — or maybe into your significant other’s car, if you’re brave enough. If your ATV has a 12V system, it’d work great for clearing drunk dunderheads at your next back-woods booze-up.

And it’s way more interesting and useful than HF’s vaunted electronic fly swatter. No, really.

12V “OOOGA” Air Horn [Harbor Freight]

Starrett combines two tools that you’d think were incompatible: a hammer and a magnifying glass. They say they integrate a magnifying lens into their No. 815 toolmakers’ hammer so you don’t have to look away from your work to find either tool.

Starrett hardens both the flat and ball-peen heads, and they chromium-plate the entire hammer for protection and an attractive finish.  A rubber mounting protects the lens from the impact of hammering.  The steel hammer weighs 133 grams, and Starrett will personalize it with a message, if you’re giving it as a gift.

Street pricing starts around $50.

Toolmakers’ Hammer [Starrett]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What's This?]

If you’ve ever punched the clock for a living, you know what it means to feel like a tiny cog in a much larger machine. Next time you feel that sensation rushing over you, think of these Chinese factory workers who ARE part of the machine.

Place-Duck-Grab, all day long. The management cautions against daydreaming or zoning out, and bathroom breaks are as much about timing as scheduling. Safety regulations are pretty lax, so the likelihood that you’ll get a cool nickname like “Lefty”, “The Stump”, or “Mr. Screams Like A Girl” are pretty high.

Are you tired of lifting and pouring five-gallon pails all day? Morse’s Model 83 Pail Handler might be the answer to your aching back. This 125-pound machine can lift a five-gallon pail that weighs up to 150 lbs. We’re not exactly sure what material weighs 30 lbs per gallon, but maybe you need to move a pail of iron filings.

(more…)

A former drywall professional invented Erase-A-Hole to take care of small patch jobs around the house. As an added bonus, the deodorant-like applicator and the suggestive name might make you crack a grin.

(more…)

At last, say goodbye to the days on the job site when you could only express your team loyalty with mere words. Now you can beat in the message — literally. No one will dare mess with your team after seeing you cling tightly to the simulated football grip — complete with front-facing laces — of this construction-grade, “all-purpose” hammer. Now who’s ready for some football? You are!

(more…)

Making fun of Harbor Freight’s non-tool items is sorta like laughing at Pat in Something About Mary — in so many ways it’s wrong, but you just can’t stop. So yet again, we feature an item that we’re surprised to find on the front page of the HF site today: a coffee mug.

That’s not to say that we’re not fans of coffee mugs — or more seriously of the life-giving elixir within. It’s just that when I think about buying beverage containers, I think, say, Target. Or maybe the grocery store. For those of you with newly-purchased class, maybe Crate and Barrel or Williams-Sonoma pops into your mind.

BS aside, we present for your consideration one 14 oz. stainless steel travel mug. Certainly from China and probably not coated in anything that’ll kill you (any faster than coffee), this 5″ high, PVC-lined cup with non-slip rubber base can be yours for the princely sum of $2. Maybe the Chinese tool manufacturers make the ‘Freightster take a few of these (and a few four-piece decorative frog sets) for every good cheap-but-decent toolbox they deliver.

Oh yeah, and they have an English wheel on sale for $249 again. Be sure to watch that shipping cost.

Travel Mug [Harbor Freight]

Video game blog 1up (among others) noted that Bill Gates’ recent Consumer Electronics Show keynote included a demonstration of the very cool Microsoft Surface, a multi-touch display panel sorta like the one you saw in Minority Report. The funny part: we hear that Bill used the surface to customize a snowboard, commenting on how cool it was to apply the customizations with one’s hands.

Incredibly, we’ve been doing things like customizing snowboards with our hands for quite some time. Now that you’re spending a little more time away from the office, Bill, why not take a stab at the old-fashioned way? If you’re stumped for projects, we’d be happy to recommend a few to get you started.

2008 CES Keynote Coverage [1up]

We thought you’d appreciate this great construction site sign, supposedly from Australia. I wonder if Todd gets a lot of calls.

Aussie Construction Sign [The Place to Blog]

This season, give your little girl a chainsaw – a chainsaw ornament, that is — with pink Swarovski crystals and a pink ribbon to match.  Or, if a chainsaw doesn’t seem just right, maybe a circ saw or a power drill are more her thing. 

(more…)

The twilight of modern man is upon us. Yes, Toolmongers, for just $20 you can have your very own laser-guided hand saw. How did you ever live without this? How could you go on living now that you’ve seen it and still don’t have one? Steal from the kids collage fund – shank someone if you must — but be sure not to miss this beauty.

Seriously – does someone honestly think this is a good idea? Of course now that I’ve tipped my hand and called it stupid, it’ll surely sell 10 million this holiday season. Personally, I’m holding out for a laser guided screwdriver.

Laser Guided Hand Saw [Collections Etc.]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

If you’re looking for some quick and easy entertainment, check out this new Home Improvement flash game over at addictinggames.com. There are three short stages in which you must complete tasks as quickly and flawlessly as possible.

Hopefully my new status as Master Toolman won’t lead to any broken bones or spoiled projects in the near future! Have you got what it takes to beat my score?

Home Improvement Game [Addictinggames.com]

So some guys are sitting around their gas stove one day thinking, “You know what this fire needs? Some crackle!” Then some down-home American ingenuity kicked in, and they probably sank their life savings into a company to bring us the Cracklebox — a digital recording of “real country fires in southwest Virginia” contained in a tiny box. According to the Kracklebox site “What Kracklebox provides, in a word, is realism.”

(more…)

The stuff some people build is amazing. You’ve got to have a great imagination – like Mike Stamps from San Clemente, CA — and a sense of humor, too, to create something like this. He devised this contraption to help him with a daily task of which he’d tired: kicking ass.

The Spanish inquisitors — or at least Mel Brooks’ interpretation of them — would be proud. And he’s looking for victims volunteers to work for him and get paid to get their asses kicked. Really.

Ass-Kicking Machine from the Best of Craigslist [Craigslist]

We’ve written about Craftsman’s bottle opener in the past, but what electrician would be caught without a Klien model?  Matt writes: “Klein screwdrivers are the most common and most recognizable tools seen in electricians’ tool pouches, and now they’ve stuck their screwdriver handle on probably the most important tool you can own: a bottle opener.  I especially love the product description: ‘Professionally designed and rigorously tested by an expert team to handle both foreign and domestic applications.’  How cool is that?  I’ve been using mine for over three years now and it’s helped me out of some jams.  They also make BBQ tools with the same cool handles!”

(more…)

Our first thought when seeing this dispenser was “man, that looks like it’s cool and would work great!”  It’s a pain in the ass to work that thin plastic tape to seal up boxes or to prepare packages for shipment.  A sweet dispenser that fits the standard 3″ rolls and that has the weight and frame to stay put when you pull a length off – leaving the “loose end” at the ready for the next pull — would be cool.

Then we saw the price. All we can say is that we want whatever these guys are smoking.  For $65 it better come with a few cases of beer or something.

Jumbo Tape Dispenser [Garret Wade]

The town of Montverde, Florida is selling one of their “big” firetrucks.  Apparently the town of just 1,200 residents and 617 homes bought a little more firetruck than they need.  From WFTV.com:

The two fire engines were bought about a year apart.  In 2004, a $250,000 grant paid for one, but the town council agreed to buy the other one after a former Montverde firefighter argued that lives could be lost without it.  [...] But now the town is stuck with a $14,000 annual payment after putting $30,000 down.  Chief Sette wants the town to buy a smaller, more mobile, far less expensive truck.”

If you’ve ever dreamed of owning a firetruck — who here hasn’t? — and happen to have $14k/mo. of disposable income, Chief Sette has a deal for you.  “It’s an ‘04.  It’s basically brand new,” he told WFTV.

Town May Sell Barely-Used Big, Red Fire Truck [WFTV.com]