This combo toolbox reminds us of those little Russian Matryoshka dolls — you know, the ones that have a dozen dolls nestled inside each other.  You can just keep taking this thing apart, and you find more compartments.  Best of all, it provides the three things you need for taking care of projects around the house:  tools, power, and reach.

If you’ve got this toolbox, you never have to go back for a stepstool, tools, or an extension cord — that’s a lot of time-saving.  By keeping you from standing on the sofa, it could also save your relationship with the significant other.

If you take it to the jobsite you might be laughed out of business, but at home it’s a winner.  Lasko must be keeping this a secret, though — Amazon and Google Products seem to think it doesn’t exist, and there’s no pricing on Lasko’s website.

Power Toolbox [Lasko]

Any arborist worth his or her salt will tell you that only trimming the branch tips on your shrub without thinning it out isn’t healthy, because light can’t reach the inside.  Even so, sometimes you might want to just even out the surface, to make it look nice and neat — but then you’re left with a big mess of clippings to pick up.  According to its makers, the Garden Groom collects its own clippings, so you don’t have to.

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Craftsman’s Nextec 12V Hammerhead Auto-Hammer has been a long time coming.  Other companies have rolled out some hokey auto-hammer designs over the years, but this one comes in a form factor that might actually work.

Think of it like a handheld jackhammer and you start to get the point.  A piston inside a sleeve travels a small distance at great speed to drive the nail home.  So instead of one or two giant swings for a standard 3-1/2” nail, the auto-hammer sinks it with around 34 small strikes per second.

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If you weld in your garage, these welding strip curtains will protect people coming out of the house from welding flash.  Black Stallion’s curtains block 99% of UV and also deaden the noise a bit.  Some of the sets seem to include door-mounting gear, and you can choose from four colors — you know, for the inner decorator in you.

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Wholesale Tool offers the best prices we can find on two different thin angle sets — $8 on the five-piece and $10 on the six-piece.  Used singly or in conjunction, these’ll support your work at a given angle, in a vise or clamped to a reference surface such as an angle plate, when drilling, milling, grinding, or inspecting.

5-Piece Thin Angle Set - 6 to 10 Degrees [Wholesale Tool]
6-Piece Thin Angle Set - 1/2 to 5 Degrees [Wholesale Tool]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

(TV Tonight, Thursday, November 13th, 2008) No new yelling tonight, but we do get a new Factory Floor about what could be the clues in a murder mystery.

All times are central.

• Rock Solid: Chicago Brick Front Entrance (DIY, 5:30 pm)
• How It’s Made: Brushes and Push Brooms, Blackboards, Smoked Salmon, Zippers (Discovery, 6:00 pm)
• Overhaulin: Chip & Chris Flipped (TLC, 6:00 pm)
• How It’s Made: Mattresses, 3-D Commercial Signs, Hardwood Floors, Corrugated Polyethylene Pipe (Discovery, 6:30 pm)
• Ask This Old House (DIY, 7:00 pm)
• American Chopper: Jet Bike (TLC, 7:00 pm)
• Factory Floor With Marshall Brain: Gun, Ice Cream, Mattress, Matches (National Geographic, 7:00 pm) NEW
• American Chopper: POW/MIA 1 (TLC, 8:00 pm)
• Classic Tractors (RFD-TV, 8:30 pm)
• Cool Tools: Cut Above (DIY, 9:00 pm)
• Cool Tools: Wood Work (DIY, 9:30 pm)
• How It’s Made: Conga Drums, Metal Plating, Buttons (Discovery, 10:00 pm)
• How It’s Made: Grinding Wheels, Compost, Window Blinds, Milk (Discovery, 10:30 pm)

Enjoy.

Ever wonder how divers can patch a hole in a ship in the water?  One way is the Hilti UW10.  This gun can seal a 15mm plate to the side of a ship to stop it from taking on too much water, saving both cargo and lives.

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The level of our readers’ projects never fails to surprise us — case in point, this sweet patio cover that reader Ethernectar constructed just in time for the rainy season.  We’re impressed because outdoor projects like this are often deceptive, sounding simple or easily achievable, but even uncomplicated jobs can get out of hand quickly.

The industrious Ethernectar opted for 10′x12′ of clear fiberglass on top with a kicker of 4′ of lattice around the edges — for good measure, he painted the wooden frame white.  It looks great, and we’re sure it’ll keep the patio free of direct rain for some time to come.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

This woodcarver’s screw from Two Cherries firmly holds your project to a bench so you can work on it from all sides.  Even though we knew the name of this tool and its purpose, it still wasn’t completely obvious how you’d use it.  After a little research, we can confidently say this is probably how it works:

Notice the square drive on the head of the screw and the square hole in the wing nut.  You use the wing nut as a wrench to drive the finer tapered threads at the tip of the screw into your workpiece.  Once the screw is secure in the piece, stick the shaft through a hole in your workbench, thread the wing nut back onto the shaft, and tighten the hell out of it.  Your workpiece is going nowhere — begin carving.

Imported from Germany, the Two Cherries woodcarver’s screw will set you back $50.

Two Cherries [Company Site]
Woodcarver’s Screw [Tools For Working Wood]

Finishing a wood project often takes longer than building it, so it sucks when some of these difficult-to-apply finishes don’t wear well.  In the Toolmonger shop, Danish oil has become one of our favorite methods — it’s easy to apply and looks great afterward — so we decided to try Watco’s latest formulation, a cherry stain, to see if it holds up to what folks have come to expect from the line.  We weren’t surprised by our results.

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You just bought a soldering station thanks to a timely Dealmonger post — now invest in a soldering accessory that’ll help you get the most from your new iron.  With Hakko’s 599B tip cleaner you can clean oxidation and excess solder from the tip of your soldering iron with coils of brass, rather than a wet sponge.

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Professional Equipment is selling the Fluke Noncontact Voltprobe for $15.10.  With this relatively safe tool you can check for AC voltage without making contact or exposing wiring — it’s handy for determining whether a circuit has been correctly shut off at the breaker!

Fluke Noncontact Voltprobe [Professional Equipment]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

(TV Tonight, Wednesday, November 12th, 2008) Discovery comes through tonight with a wonderful lineup. We get slow-mo fun on two new Time Warps, a phraseological Mythbusters, and a waterslide simulator on Prototype This. We’re not sure what the heck a waterslide simulator is, whether it’s the physics or the experience that they’re simulating — but we’re not complaining!

All times are central.

• World’s Toughest Fixes: High-Voltage Power Lines (National Geographic, 5:00 pm)
• Rock Solid: Houseboat Thin Veneer (DIY, 5:30 pm)
• How It’s Made: Conga Drums, Metal Plating, Buttons (Discovery, 6:00 pm)
• How It’s Made: Grinding Wheels, Compost, Window Blinds, Milk (Discovery, 6:30 pm)
• Ask This Old House (DIY, 7:00 pm)
• Time Warp: Liquid Nitrogen (Discovery, 7:00 pm) NEW
• Time Warp: Bull Whip (Discovery, 7:30 pm) NEW
• Deconstruction: Metal Working (DIY, 8:00 pm)
• MythBusters: End With a Bang (Discovery, 8:00 pm) NEW
• Prototype This!: Backyard Waterslide Simulator (Discovery, 9:00 pm) NEW
• World’s Toughest Fixes: Thirty-Eight-Ton Engine (National Geographic, 9:00 pm)
• How It’s Made: Plastic Injection Moulds, Automotive Oil Filters, Filing Cabinets, Blown Glass (Discovery, 10:00 pm)
• How It’s Made: High-Precision Cutting Tools, Stained Glass, Semi-Trailers, Recorders (Discovery, 10:30 pm)

Enjoy.

Our friends over at Gizmodo dropped a fun post last week outlining “the 50 skills every geek should have,” and it inspired us to create a list of the 50 skills every Toolmonger should have. Think you know more about tools and DIY than most? Take our test — and don’t forget to score yourself via the poll at the end of the list. How many of these can you do?

1. Pull an engine
2. Own a toolbox with wheels
3. Mend a fence (extra credit for barbed wire)
4. Install a ceiling fan complete with remote
5. Build furniture for inside your home
6. Own and know when to use at least three kinds of drill bits
7. Pull a transmission
8. Visit a “pick ‘n pull” junkyard and actually pull your own parts
9. Buy steel in bulk (and negotiate for a discount)
10. Finish a wood project with stain (that’s not your own blood)
11. Sacrifice a full garage bay to your “shop”
12. Install dimmers in your home
13. Patch drywall cleanly enough to fool your significant other/landlord
14. Mix and pour your own concrete
15. Restore a $50 junk lawnmower to life
16. Hammer ten nails without bending them
17. Frame a small building (without a kit)
18. Operate a chainsaw without injury to you (or others)
19. Install your own crown molding with compound miter cuts
20. Start a non-fuel injected car that’s been sitting for weeks
21. Make your own picture frame with a router and miter saw
22. Cut accurate rabbet joints
23. Build a desk with drawers
24. Hang a door
25. Winterize a motorcycle
26. Change a tire yourself using only factory tools
27. Build an improvised BBQ grill out of steel and shop scrap
28. Remove dried wood stain and paint from bare concrete
29. Spray paint a project in the dark
30. Clean up crappy welds with a grinder
31. Fix anything with superglue
32. Plunge a toilet without getting crap on you
33. Make circ saw framing cuts without a sawhorse
34. Sharpen your own knife
35. Install/repair a toilet
36. Sweat copper tubing
37. Patch a leaking roof
38. Balance your central heat/air-conditioning system
39. Correctly wire a 3-way light switch
40. Fix a leaky faucet
41. Adjust a carburetor
42. Install a car stereo
43. Tow another vehicle
44. Build your own tool to get a job done
45. Complete a brake job for a quarter the cost of taking it to a shop
46. Tile a floor
47. Paint a room
48. Adjust a garage door (or repair it after you didn’t)
49. Install a window
50. Install a hot water heater

How'd you rate?
• (41-49) You're the neighborhood expert -- the guy everyone comes to for advice. You can build a space shuttle from duct tape, some "junk" from the shop, and superglue. You're a bad-ass. Period.
• (21-30) You can handle most jobs around the house, but you leave the heavy lifting to the pros.
• (31-40)For better or worse, you're convinced you can take on pretty much any job. And about half the time, you're right!
• (50) You should write for Toolmonger. Seriously, drop us a line.
• (11-20) You like hanging out in the Crafstman department at Sears, but you have no idea why.
• (1-10) You've seen Home Improvement, but your Tim Taylor fan club card is your only Toolmonger credential.
• (0) You're the guy who keeps accosting us to fix your s--- every time we take out the trash.
View Results

As we mentioned in the Tool Talk podcast 43 last week, we had some issues pulling the power-steering pump out of the shop truck we’re fixing up.  Actually, “trouble” doesn’t really cover it –- we had a hell of a time.  Reader AggieMike clued us in on a sweet technique that might’ve worked.

I’m not sure if y’all have managed to pull that power steering pulley or not now, but if you aren’t going to re-use it, why not drill and tap some holes in it and use a steering-wheel puller on it. My buddy and I did this on a stubborn pulley once and it worked like a charm.

This sounds promising — we also could’ve drilled the holes and positioned nuts behind the pulley and hooked the bolts into the steering-wheel puller.  We didn’t think of these ideas at the time, but either of ‘em would’ve been worth a shot.  At least our solution involved Chuck hacking things up, which is a favorite of his.

Street pricing for a basic steering-wheel puller is around $8.

Steering-Wheel Puller [Street Pricing]
Podcast #43 [Tool Talk]

Living in a third-floor apartment brought me to the conclusion that lugging anything up and down stairs is not cool — so my place is devoid of them. That means I miss out on projects like this staircase rebuild that reader Apeman.org is working on.

His new staircase looks great, and now it’s ready for caulk and sealant. For anyone who hasn’t attempted a rebuild like this, the angles and measurements involved can be a serious chunk of math, even for a simple staircase — and a spiral staircase can really bust your brain.

Apeman, we hope this one turns out as good as it looks so far.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

We’re not exactly sure what advantage the split-head design on Jet’s Double Header C-clamp gives, but it definitely looks different than most C-clamps.  Instead of two clamping points, the Double Header gives you three points, presumably to spread around the tool’s 1,500 pounds of clamping force.

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