Tool Blog

For many Festool owners it is either Festool tools or nothing, and in a time when just about every tool user has an impact driver, these same Festool fans have been making excuses as to why they don't need an impact driver. I have heard excuses like, "I don't need an impact because my Festool drill has more than enough power". Really? More torque than an impact driver? Sure their reasoning is a joke, but we have to admire their loyalty, even though it is annoying. But soon all those Festool owners that don't need impact...

What is a good way to make sure we write about your product? Well, sending out a fully functional tool belt made out of Gorilla Glue brand Gorilla Tape sure helps. To be honest, I am a huge fan of Gorilla wood glue and choose it over other brands whenever I can. I like the fact that it is a little thicker and does not run, and it holds strong as would be expected. That being said, I have not used most of the other Gorilla Glue products, such as their epoxies or or tapes. Making...

Large or long items can sometimes be hard to carry, but not so much because of their weight, but because of their size, shape, or even their packaging. The Strap-A-Handle is a product that was born to correct these awkward-carry items by giving them a handle. After all, everything that is easy to carry has a built in handle. Unfortunately for us, many of the items we have to carry on a daily basis do not have handles, things like boxes, bags of pet food, packs of water, or even bulk TP. The Strap-A-Handle is as simple...

Wilton has introduced a new sledge hammer named BASH that they claim has a handle that is unbreakable. Now I have a hard time thinking that anything is truly unbreakable, and I believe the actual warranty for the BASH will state that the handle is unbreakable under normal conditions, but the fact that they back up their tool's handle with a $1000 guarantee for 2 years, thus putting their money where their mouth is, should add a bit of confidence to anyone purchasing the tool. What makes the BASH handle so much better than...

I have been referring to router cookies as router pucks for a while now; as a hockey fan it was easy for me to make the obvious connection. I called them this because they do really look like hockey pucks, and I also wanted to stay away from using any trademarked names. Lee Valley also made the hockey connection, but being from Canada, they took the connection more literally then I did, and are now using actual hockey pucks for their router Bench Pucks. According to Lee Valley, they never wanted to get into...

One thing I really like about Makita is that they update their tools often; in many cases frequent updates could be perceived as a bad thing, suggesting that a product is being updated to fix an issue, but I have never found that to be the case with Makita. I have been using Makita impact drivers for over 10 years now, well before they were popular, and have used a few different models during that time. This time around Makita has no huge changes to their new LXDT01 1/4-inch Impact Drivers, but even the...

Besides being a commercial for Festool products, in the video below, Gary Katz does a really good job showcasing and explaining the new Bessey Auto-Adjust Toggle Clamps. These are the clamps I showed you a while back that appear to use the same or similar technology as my favorite LockJaw Auto-Adjusting Clamps. When I first posted about these clamps back in July, I also posted a video from Bessey that showcases the clamps, but what I like about the Gary Katz video is that he shows us how, as a woodworker or as a finish carpenter, you can use...

Finally we have a solution for getting marks or lines in really narrow places. Countless numbers of times I find that I need to mark layout holes for brackets, but the small holes combined with the thickness of the brackets make it impossible to get the tip of a pen or pencil through. Bleispitz has a new product that is specifically designed to reach into narrow places and make marking a simple task again. What they have is a marker with a tip that is almost a full inch in length (25mm). The tip...

Are you ready to throw out your hex-wrenches and go tool free? After I just finished my review of both Bosch multi-tools, Dremel comes out with news of their new tool-less MM40. This lack of a tool-less feature is one of complaints with the current Bosch offerings, but not because they require tools, only because they require tools that can easily be lost. The new MM40 from Dremel also gets a power boost up to 2.5 amps from 1.5amps. This puts the power rating up with the big boys, and offers a variable speed...

Bosch sent me out their Cordless PS50 Multi-X a few months back, as well as their Corded MX25E Multi-X. Since I got them both around the same time, and have used them both on the jobsite, I figured it would be best to do a single article that reviews and compares both models together. Oddly, Bosch's introduction into the oscillation tool market was done with the 10.8/12-volt cordless PS50, while other manufacturers and even their own tool subsidiary, Dremel, all introduced corded models. But even though the PS50 is a few years old, it is still...