We all remember the original magnetic pickup tool. Someone stuck a magnet on the end of a telescoping antenna and life was made a little simpler. Next thing you know, we’re adding hinges and pads and flex shafts and LED lights. Everything under the sun has been added to the basic magnetic pickup tool to make it more effective. The funny part is, it all works.
You don’t really plan on going out to pick one of these bad boys up until you need one, so we’re letting you in on a little secret now: if you don’t already have one, you need to get one the next time you’re out. Be it a small old-school kind or one of the new generation flex-shaft, extendable variety, the time will come when an errant bolt will pop down into or behind an immovable object and you’ll be boned. Don’t be without a way to retrieve it.
Street Pricing [Google Products]
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
5 Responses to The Magnetic Pick-Up Tool — You Need One
Leave a Reply
Toolmonger on Flickr
I carry one on my toolbelt so I can pick up dropped screws without bending over. When I was an apprentice, my journeyman said to me “You only get so many bend overs in life. Don’t waste them.” I took that to heart and it has saved my aging back and knees.
Make sure you buy one with as small a head as possible – and make sure the magnet is neodymiun which are ridiculusly high power for there size.
It seems to me that the one pictured in the middle is for old men who drop their screws on the floor.
Also, I like the thought of an led on the head but it makes the head so much bigger that it woud be useless half the time.
I was at a Grainger open house yesterday – saw one of these from Westward tools. Pretty nifty…the rep was giving them out as samples. Now that’s a deal you can’t beat.
Do they make one with a laser so I can target what I want to pickup?
With the hammer I use the most, I embedded a rare earth magnet in the end of the handle. It’s not as slender or long as my pickup tool but it’s almost always with me.
Run, don’t walk, out to your shop and do up your hammer; you won’t regret it.