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!

Street pricing on the dominoes is $44.

Double Six Dominoes [Alumicolor]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

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.

Powerful magnets are cool — powerful magnets that switch on and off are even cooler — and magnets powerful enough to lift a manhole cover rank way up there on the coolness scale. This Magswitch manhole-lifting magnet can lift manhole covers up to 400 lbs!

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Doh! Tie down your load, know the length, know the height! Obviously this story happened in 2006, but breaking S#!$ is cool any time. Check out more photos of this whoopsie on Snopes.com.

While we’re on the subject of bridges, when was the last time you watched a video of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse? Structural failures, machinery failures, tool failures — Toolmongers usually arrive on the site before anyone else, either containing or cleaning up the mess.  And sometimes a Toolmonger pulls a Tim “The Toolman” Taylor stunt.

Let us know in comments about the failures and mistakes you’ve seen.

Hoe Down [Snopes]

Reader Litcritter just became a proud papa, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a tool guy. While his bundle of joy was being born he took the time to swing the camera around and grab a shot of the crash cart in the corner of the room.

We dig this for two reasons: Firstly, because Litcritter is just cool for thinking about rolling storage while his daughter was coming into the world; and secondly because some IT team decided to buy comparatively cheap rolling storage from Sears rather than pay crack-smoking prices for the same gear painted taupe.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

As things get smaller, computers, hearing aids, heart valves, and the like all need smaller parts to function — and when the screws for these products get too small to handle, you need a smaller tool! Asta Gegeckaite and a team of researchers at the Technical University of Denmark have solved at least part of the assembly nightmare created by the miniaturization trend. They created a special gripper/automatic screwdriver to assemble these tiny parts.

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When I think of tire-inflation testing, my mind boggles with scenes of massive blowouts — breaking S#!$ is so much fun! I’m sure the tire-retreading industry keeps spectacular failures to a minimum, but the shielding on the machine tells me they’re not impossible.

Here you’re looking at the car-tire-inflation tester — the truck-tire version is a bit *heftier*. Despite my love of destruction, I find it reassuring to think that retread tires might actually be tested before they get reused on the highway, driving alongside my car.

Tire-Inflation Tester [Matteuzzi]

I dedicate this find to reader eschoendorff who thought the collapsible wheelbarrow was less than manly. Now you can replace your puny wheelbarrow with the Muck-truck, a four-wheel-drive, hand-driven dump truck with all-terrain tires that can handle any surface you throw at it, including snow, mud, and sand.

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I have trouble staying focused on any project that takes longer than a long weekend, so my to-do list doesn’t include “Build a barn from scratch.”  But in the last few months reader Rembreto did just that.

The last time we saw this barn it looked rather naked with a few beams missing. Now, as he stands in his shiny new outbuilding with sliding metal doors, I look at my slightly weedy backyard and wonder where I’ve been putting all my time. Congrats on the build, Rembreto.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

Whether you love your computer or hate it, it can definitely help you do a few good things — reading Toolmonger is one, obviously, but brewing beer is another. The brewing calculation software called BeerTools Pro can keep even a really serious beer brewer on schedule.  You can keep track of your inventory, estimate when each batch should be ready, formulate recipes, and look up guidelines for beer styles.  And the reference section archives more information about beer than most of us will ever really understand, right at your fingertips.

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Some city-folks have expressed to me that the idea of drinking groundwater is scary or icky, but most people who drink well water tell me it tastes much better than city water. Whether you like to drink from ‘em or not, these pitcher pumps have stood the test of time, thanks to their sturdy and simple design.  Putting one loose in a garden seems to be a trendy thing, but personally I’d have to dig a well first — half the beauty is that the pump works, even if the water isn’t palatable.

Campbell Manufacturing makes the pitcher pump above, and street pricing starts at $53.

Pitcher Pump [Campbell Manufacturing]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]

Often times when folks set out to build something, they’re responding to a specific need. For instance, if you’re short some storage space, you might decide a spiffy new bookcase is in order. We always applaud the functional and levelheaded approach to project selection, but we also dig the downright silly and immature ones. Take the donut machine — no one needs one of these machines, but I can’t think of a guy within a 100 mile radius who wouldn’t at least stop and holler when it starts doing its thing.

There’s a bit of poetry in building a rig like this. Not only does it shred up some perfectly good rubber and asphalt, it could potentially get the neighbors ticked off enough to call the cops on you. Hats off and beers up to whoever decided this was a good idea.

Now, pour some bleach under that tire, and get down to business.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

Toolmonger Sean O’Hara has wanted a bulldozer since he was a kid; maybe the tracks are the common theme, but in an unprecedented statement Sean has rated this lettuce harvester as a tie with a bulldozer for which he would get first! The “Headrazor” lettuce harvester sports all stainless steel construction, for easy removal of lettuce guts, and you can slide the walkways and canopy in and out to easily transition between transport mode and lettuce destructor mode.

I didn’t find pricing on the site, but I’m sure Ramsay Highlander will provide you with a price quote if you want a Headraiser of your very own.

Headraiser [Ramsay Highlander]

I’m not into wood turning, but I know a cool looking tool when I see one. The Gage’T may look like a deformed plastic C-clamp, but really this tool measures the wall thickness of turned bowls. Designed by Keith Tompkins, the offset design of the Gage’T allows you to measure to the center of bowls up to 18″ in diameter.

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This plumb bob level might look clunky next to a level with a bubble vial, but back in the day this may have been the only type of level you could make yourself, unless you had moderate glassblowing skills. Union Hill Antique Tools markets this particular level as “one of the great super-rare levels of the world. A Bradford Union Patented Cast Iron Inclinometer, Bradford PA. 18 inches long. Best one of 2 known.”

You can own this antique level for the price of a bulldozer, $15,000. Or, if you’re just looking for a good DIY project or a conversation piece, you could probably save a little money by making one yourself.

Bradford Level [Union Hill Antique Tools]

Toolmongers are always improvising. If they have a job that needs to get done, they get it done, regardless of whether the proper tools are readily available. A prime example, this gentleman from Mexico needed to sharpen his tools but had no sharpener — so in true Toolmonger fashion, he made his own.

Today’s trash collection technology is focused on reducing man-hours, since the industry’s biggest cost is labor. Robotic trash trucks, operated by the driver alone, collect the garbage; trash compactors reduce storage size so it doesn’t have to be collected as often. Now, the folks at Big Belly Solar have combined clean energy with the trend toward ease and efficiency — they’ve come out with a solar-powered trash compactor.

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