Cool Tools

5-in-1 Painter's Tool

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:47:05 -0800

I'd seen these scrapers for years and always figured them to be a gimmick, just a glorified putty knife. Then a friend helped me with a roofing project and brought one along. The more I used it, the more I came to see it as the single most handy, versatile and cheapest jobsite tool I've found. The basic functions: scraper, putty knife, chisel, pick, paint roll cleaner (squeegee).

I have probably a dozen of them floating around right now, always one or two on a jobsite. At a buck or so a piece, they are an incredible bargain. The pointy end does a great job of cleaning out crevices, scraping off excess glue or weld slag, prying up staples and getting into tight places. Makes a great little pry bar for wood trim. They can be used as a wedge and make a dandy temporary door stop/door hold open. The point can double as a Phillips screwdriver in a pinch. The flat side does a great job of opening cans. Sharpened up, the large flat blade can be used as a wood scraper or wood chisel. Great for those places where you may hit metal and don't want to trash a good chisel.

You can also customize them for specific tasks easily by filing or grinding them down if, say, you're refinishing and need a specific-sized scraper for the trim or you want to sharpen one side to a near-razor edge. I have seriously beat on these with a hammer and never had one shatter or snap. But they don't bend like a cheap screwdriver when prying with them. The steel is high-quality enough to do the task -- quite stiff and does not bend easily at all -- but still relatively easy to work with, file, etc.

I've had more expensive versions and cheaper ones and there isn't a noticeable amount of difference in the tools. I prefer the Dollar Store ones with the wood handle (great for hammering cans closed, etc.), but the scrapers with the nylon handle (below) are also sufficient.

-- Norman Bolser

5-in-1 Painter's Tool
$2
Available from Amazon

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DIY language learning

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:05:00 -0800

This handbook teaches you how to learn any language on your own, in the language's home turf, by teaching a native speaker to be your teacher.

The trick is to instruct your local agent to teach you something he/she is hardly aware of -- the structure of their language. You will supply the plan and so are teaching yourself through them. Comprende? It's done slowly, naturally, and playfully - the way you learned English. Your assistant doesn't even have to speak your language.

You begin using a few easy words, trying to make as many mistakes as you possibly can, entertaining the folks in the marketplace or anywhere else they'll put up with your blabberings. Then you systematically add additional words in steady daily use, guiding your guide in what you want to learn next. This well-tested method was devised by missionaries trying to learn languages lacking scripts, courses, or guidebooks, and works great for dialects, or indeed any language you want to learn.

The text of this workbook shows you how to construct your own exercises that fit the language you are after and later how to discover its grammar by yourself. The goal is multiculturalism, inseparable from multilingualism. Like realizing that you don't need a degree in anything to build your own house, learning that you can become fluent in another language without a course or classroom is deliciously radical.

If you like this approach check out other online texts by missionary linguists which take the same approach of enabling an intermediate to become your language teacher.

This DIY process works best on location, rather than before you arrive.

-- KK

Language Acquisition Made Practical
E. Thomas Brewster and Elizabeth Brewster
1976 (1998 printing); 384 pp.

Available from Amazon

or $15 from Lingua House

Author's website:
Lingua House
135 North Oakland
Pasadena, CA 91182
818/584-5276

There's more of the same approach (different book) here at SIL, also a language site for missionaries.

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Elance

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:58:59 -0800

Elance is a global marketplace for freelancers. You post a job you want done, and freelancers around the world will bid on it in a matter of hours. Once the price and deadline are agreed upon, the work will be delivered to you very rapidly. Because of its global nature, your costs may be very low.

Elance has a pool of 135,000 pros expert in programming, design, writing, and legal matters. People use them to design a logo, create marketing materials, tweak a database, code a website, create an iPhone app. I've used Elance three times now and have had fantastic results. For instance recently I had to move 3,000 images from Cool Tools' old Moveable Type database to a new one in a very hairy non-trivial manner. Estimates from US shops for writing the necessary script went as high $6,000 and would take months from specs to testing. We went on Elance, got a bid for $250 to do it manually (without scripts) and it was done perfectly in a week. You could start a company with them. In fact Kevin Rose hired an Elancer to code the first version of the now-popular website Digg.

Elance's escrow service holds the payment and protects both the work provider and you the employer. The site provides status updates on work done, and plenty of communication between the parties. Workers must pass a competency test to qualify to be listed. Some freelancers can also pass expertise tests in a mild form of certification, say for working on java or ajax, etc. Elance freelancers did about $60 million of work last year and less than 1% of the jobs had any kind of dispute, and most of those were self-resolved by the fact that the entire transaction correspondence is logged.

While I went to Elance for cheap labor, others go to it to get jobs done in a hurry, or to find expertise that they can't find locally. (Fifty percent of Elancers live in North America.) If you have work, and you know what you want, this is a great service.

The real trick in using Elance, or its competitors RentACoder, GetAFreelancer and oDesk (which I have not used) and Guru (which I have used with satisfaction) is in being able to specify the deliverable you want without spending more time that it would take to do the project itself. This kind of outsourcing is best for bite-sized chunks of work. The more precise you can detail your job the better that Elance or the others will work for you. It's not good for consulting, hand-holding, or mind-changing assignments. But it can be cheap enough that you can try lots of things. It costs you nothing to post a job on Elance. (The winning provider will pay a 5-10% fee to Elance.) You can pay with PayPal.

And it is not just for coders. I hired a guy to run ethernet cable in our home, and others have found a videographer for their wedding, or a translator for their manual, etc. Like any remote relationship, you get what you put into it. Elance, Guru and GetaFreelancer use escrows, which protect you (and the worker). Elance has open bidding, GetAFreelancer has the option of closed bidding. To date, Elance is the marketplace that seems to have the most action so that is why I use them.

It's a great tool when you need to hire expertise.

-- KK

Elance

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Wi-Ex ZBoost 510

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 08:58:53 -0800

This cell phone booster will increase your signal strength by one or two bars. If your home or office has dismal cell phone coverage, as mine does, this booster can make a difference. Often a spot outside your building, or on top of your building will have better coverage. This device picks up the signal from a small stick-like antenna and relays it via a cable to a book-size station where you want the signal. Using this in my studio I can now get two bars where before I had none. The zBoost is the least expensive signal repeater I could find.

A few important caveats. This is not a miracle machine; if you have no bars outside, there is no signal to amplify, so you will still have none inside. Also, the antenna and relay station need to be separated by a wall or ceiling or several rooms so that you do not simply create a feedback loop where the antenna is recirculating the stations emissions, creating a useless squelch. Lastly, the radius of boosted signal is small. It can serve a large room, or maybe a few small rooms. In my experience it will not fill a home, or office with a boosted signal. It is best to think of this as providing a boost to a room. To cover a large area you'll need more than one, but I don't have any experience in what happens with overlapping coverage.

I have the dual spectrum variety of EZBooster, which covers most carriers, in part as a service to visitors. I also found that finding the optimal location for the antenna is not obvisous or trivial. Placement makes a huge difference; it's worth trying all kinds of positions. Sometimes attics and corners of rooms will work, and sometimes near windows are NOT better. There's a 50-foot interconnecting white coaxil cable which should be long enough, but can be ugly.

For years I've tried to get my local cell phone companies to boost the signal in our neighborhood, but with no success. This modest gadget at least gives me coverage in my home office.

-- KK

Wi-Ex ZBoost YX 510
$290
Avialable from Amazon

Manufactured by Repeater Store

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Nikon Monarch Binoculars

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:55:19 -0800

Do high-priced optics really make much difference in a pair of binoculars? Yes. Great optics create a very bright image within a large viewing area, so that if feels as if you are looking through a magic window rather than squinting through a tiny peephole. Your eyes scan the scope easily, as if there were no glass in front of them -- except everything is closer. You can watch longer, in dimmer light, without fatigue, which is what you want for birding, sporting, or boating. If great optics are squeezed into a lightweight waterproof small object you can hold this magic window longer without the shakes. In short, superior optics make distance viewing clearer, easier, weather tolerant and all around better. According to the Cornell Ornithology Lab and Birder's World, the best buy for high-quality optics birding binoculars are the Nikon Monarchs. The go for about $216 on the street.

These are startlingly bright, wide-eyed, and lightweight (21.5 oz), which has made the Monarchs a best seller. Because they are waterproof and shockproof -- with an amazing 25-year warranty -- they are also very popular with hunters. They can also focus as close as 8 feet -- ideal for dragonfly and butterfly viewing (thus the name Monarch).

If you have not examined binoculars recently they are undergoing a performance curve similar to cameras, getting better and cheaper each year. These $250 binocs would have cost $1,000 only 5 years ago. When friends view these Nikon Monarchs, they go "Wow! It's like a movie screen!" I've found the ease of viewing -- sort of like watching a flat screen rather than peering through a tube -- encourages me to use them more. I also like the fact they are waterproof so I can use them in the rain and mist without worry. I wear prescription sunglasses and these work perfectly fine with them. They also feel well-balanced in my medium hands. I find I can hold them fairly steady for long periods of time with one hand. None of this was true with my inexpensive binoculars in the past.

The very best binoculars today go for $2,000. But for only $216 (what I paid ), or one tenth the price, you can get a pair of these Nikon Monarch binoculars and get 95% of the same performance. Sure, in a one-to-one comparison, a pair of $2,000 binoculars may be a little better, but they are not 10 times better.

Other new models share many of the same features of these 8x42 Monarchs, including sealed optics, waterproofing, coated glass, and bright viewing, but these others cost a minimum of $500-600. There are certainly cheaper binocs (you can get decent ones for $50) but they suffer from dim views, narrow fields, short lives. The Nikon Monarchs make a fantastic tool: You get most of a thousand-dollar view for a bargain price.

-- KK

$216-$250 (price seems to vary on demand)
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Nikon

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Kiva

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:00:00 -0800

Micofinancing is among the better ways for the haves to help the have-nots. Small loans are made to poor but ambitious workers, who expand their livelihoods with the small loan and then pay it back. Which is then lent out again. The previously recommended agencies Opportunity International, and Trickle Up are great tools for individuals in developed countries to kick-start other folk's self-development. These agencies do the hard work of identifying and training the recipients, and tracking loans and performance.

But why not use the peer-to-peer model to allow individuals with money to loan to specific individuals in need of a small loan? That's what Kiva does and it works wonderfully.

Kiva enables you to make small $25 or above loans to an individual or small group of individuals in a developing country. They use these small loans (aggregated to about $200-$400) to finance a food stall, repair shop, hair salon, sewing machine, new cash crop, etc. When they pay it back to you in about 11 months, you can then re-lend it to another person of your choice.

The advantages of Kiva over the other worthy agencies are three fold. One, you can direct your loans to the kind of projects or livelihood you deem the most important or the most sympathetic. Maybe you are into food so you gravitate to funding small cafes or local fruit growers. Or maybe you think women's sewing centers are a key. Secondly you have more direct contact with the borrowers. They have names, faces, stories. Not a few Kiva lenders have met up with folks they have lent to. Thirdly, while most microfiance agencies are thrifty, Kiva is particularly thin in administration thanks to the well-designed software platform that runs this service.

The payback rate for Kiva is about 97%. That's a better "investment" than stocks this past year! The variety of folks you can lend to is exhilarating. The karma is good. These loans make a difference. Kiva lends $1 million dollars every 10 days. It is easy to do. A few folks are already on their third cycle of re-loaning the same money they first put up three years ago.

I think the peer-to-peer lending service of Kiva is such a wonderful tool that I have started a Cool Tools Lending Team. The intention is to gather like-minded folks to make microloans to folks needing tools to start or build a livelihood. I've seeded the team with the first $300 of loans to three borrowers planing to use the loans for tools and I'll add up to $1,000 of Cool Tool's ad revenue as the team identifies borrowers hoping to secure tools. Ideally, other Cool Tool readers will join me in lending small amounts to enable others to self-develop and remake their lives. If you are interested, please join me at the Kiva Cool Tools Team.

-- KK

UPDATE: Good news and bad news. Good news is that word-of-mouth praise drew many folks to Kiva this holiday season and all available lendees have been funded. There were several thousand a week ago, so this is a great thing. Bad news is that if you are headed there for the first time, you won't find anyone to loan to. I trust this is temporary but I have no idea when they'll be an "inventory" of loan candidates. When there are lendees available, you can join the Cool Tools team by signing up for the team, then making a loan to an individual in the ordinary way and choosing Cool Tools from the Team option when you "checkout."

Kiva

Kiva Cool Tools Team

Sample entrepreneur:

My name is Khursheed Bibi. I am a fifty-year-old woman. I have lived in the city of Pakpattan, Pakistan, for 15 years. My husband, Mr. Rafiq, is a mason. I have three kids: one son and two daughters. My son runs a furniture making business. My elder daughter is in 9th standard and my younger in 8th standard. I run a decorative embroidery business. I embroider dresses and sell them in clothing markets. I charge $3 per dress. I invest my income in my daughters' education (paying school and tuition fees). I've successfully repaid two previous loans from Asasah (a microfinance institute of Pakistan). Now I am applying again for a loan to buy lumber to expand my son's furniture making business. I am the leader of a group of entrepreneurs sharing this loan.

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Anchor Optics

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 09:44:51 -0800

Remember Edmund Scientific, the perennial advertiser in the back of science magazines? They sold lenses in addition to all kinds of scientific knick-knacks and basement experimenter supplies. Anchor Optics is a division of Edmund's upscale optics company, selling mostly to professionals, but at a discount. They've got loupes and microscopes, but also Fresnel lenses, commercial grade front-side mirrors, laser parts, optical bench gear, prisms, and advance fiber optic stuff -- just about anything optical you can imagine at good prices, Anchor sells Edmund's surplus or "seconds" -- but only second in some cosmetic or inessential way. If you need a lens or an optical flat mirror of a certain size, you'll probably end up here.

-- KK

Anchor Optics

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Dyna-Glo Pro Heater

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:35:58 -0800

If you have an unheated shop or garage, and you want to warm it fast so that you can get straight to work, this crazy-macho heater really does the job. It's very powerful (70,000 BTU) and, amazingly, creates no detectable odor while burning kerosene. Sold only in Home Depot stores (not available anywhere online) it retails for around $200, which is slightly less than similar models by other manufacturers. While many forced-air heaters of this type are propane-powered, this one allows you a choice of kerosene or diesel, eliminating the hassle, weight, and expense of a propane cylinder.

Inside the heater a pump vaporizes the fuel, which is ignited in a tube containing a powerful fan. The blast of hot air feels good and is much more effective than a passive convection heater. The device looks and functions like a small rocket motor, which adds to the fun of it for me, since I feel nostalgic for the days when consumer products were unencumbered by tiresome safety features. Some people however may be disconcerted by the yellow flames that emerge about 1 to 2 inches from the business end during normal use. If you live in Massachusetts, you're supposed to get a local fire department permit before you plug it in and induce ignition.

You must have a fresh air supply through a partially opened door or window, and you don't want pets or children around. Probably a concrete floor is advisable, and (even though the instructions somehow fail to mention this) you should not stand directly in front of the heater while switching it on! In 35-degree weather, in a workshop of 20 x 25 feet with a very high 16-foot ceiling, the heater created a 70-degree environment within about 15 minutes. The burning vapor makes a muted roaring noise, but you probably won't need to run it for more than a few minutes at a time.

Although the heater has a thermostatic control, I prefer to use mine manually, since a gadget resembling a small rocket motor which ignites itself at unpredictable moments is enough to make me a little jumpy. Dyna-Glo also manufactures a smaller, propane-powered version, which I tried but didn't like as much. They offer two larger liquid-fuelled models which I haven't tested, because I don't have that much space to heat.

--Charles Platt

Dyna-Glo Pro Heater
$200
model: RMC-KFA70TDGP
Available at Home Depot (not yet online)

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Cash Can

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:24:02 -0800

The Cash Can is a small brass tube just big enough for a rolled-up bill. The tube can't be opened unless you remove it from your key ring. It's as easy to remove from the keyring as your keys are. It's also unobtrusive -- the whole thing is shorter than most of my keys. Even though I live in a city with an ATM on every block, I'm big on always having a spare $20 bill at hand. I've usually got one stashed in my car and another in my gear bag, and a third tucked into my wallet. The advantages of the Cash Can are its workmanship and stealthiness -- unless they read this review, few people are going to know what's inside the brass tube. It just looks like a key fob. Plus, if I lose my wallet, at least I've got the cash attached to my keys.

-- Mike Everett-Lane

Cash Can
$18
Available from Sunshine Products

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Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:17:54 -0800

Although I have played acoustic guitar for some time, I had never considered the prospect of actually building one myself from scratch. Then one of my co-workers brought in an acoustic guitar he had built using the guiding principles contained within WIlliam Cumpiano's Guitarmaking. I was truly blown away by the professional build and tonal quality of his guitar, and was immediately hooked on the hobby. Widely considered in many lutherie circles to be the de facto bible for the novice guitarmaker, this book makes the whole experience seem far less intimidating.

Cumpiano's book can be approached as both a comprehensively detailed construction manual as well as a structural framework for creative exploration. Taken in its most straightforward form, the book will guide you step by step in exacting detail through the entire construction process -- from tool and wood selection, through to lacquering and final string-action set up -- enabling aspiring luthiers of any skill level to produce a quality final guitar. Each task is broken down in an assembly line-like manner, and is prefaced with exactly which tools and materials will be required; everything down to the number and placement of clamps to the glue drying time is provided. There are also explanations of beginner's pitfalls and invaluable tips on how to avoid them.

One of the most striking points I garnered from this book is that an acoustic guitar can be completely constructed with very minimal tools. In fact, the book assumes you have little or no access to power tools. I live in a small condo without any extra space or anything resembling a workshop. Although I had some previous woodworking experience, I had never used tools such as hand planes, cabinet scrapers, and paring chisels. Still, with the book, I was able to confidently take on the challenging and rewarding task of designing and building a guitar about the size of the previously-reviewed Martin OM -- in my kitchen. You don't have to blow through three weeks of vacation time to enjoy this hobby either. I've been working on mine fairly consistently, but also off-and-on for a year now (I expect to finish around Janurary 2009).

If you read with an open mind and are willing to research modern construction techniques on the Internet and learn from other builders, I found you can also take what you learn from Cumpiano and slightly improve upon the book's construction techniques in a few areas -- a caveat that even he mentions in the preface in the book, as lutherie is a constantly-evolving art form. For instance, there is a chapter about "pinning" the neck to the body that reads as a fairly complex task. However, Cumpiano subsequently invented a more modern "bolt on" approach that is significantly easier and more successful, and he has continued to provide his readers with these construction tips and details on his web site.

-Steve Summerford

Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology:
A Complete Reference for the Design & Construction
of the Steel-String Folk Guitar & the Classical Guitar
William Cumpiano
1998, 392 pages
$35
Available from Amazon

Cumpian's web site

Great resources for the harder-to-find tools:
Stewart-MacDonald
Allied Lutherie
LMI
RC Tonewood & Sons

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Generac Guardian Automatic Standby Generator

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:11:21 -0800

Right now, the electrical power I'm using to submit this entry as I watch television in my warm home is being supplied by my Generac Guardian 12kw generator. It's been running continuously for more than 40 hours now since the latest ice storm left 250,000 people in Maine without power. I've had this unit for nearly ten years now, and it has reliably provided power whenever the grid fails, which can happen a few times a year in this pretty rural part of the country.

The exact model I have is a 04456-0 which is 10kw when used on Natural Gas or 12kw when used with LP (Liquified Petroleum) Gas. Ours sits on a small pad in the backyard hooked up to the same buried LP gas tank I use to heat the house, provide hot water, etc. Since the unit is air cooled, there's no radiator or water pump to worry about. No fan belts. And very little maintenance. Essentially, you have a 5-year battery to replace and an oil change every six months. It "exercises" once a week for 20 minutes and will indicate if there is a problem. The most that's ever gone wrong with it in all these years was a bad spark plug that I fixed in minutes. Mostly, you ignore it until the power goes out. I test mine in the fall or if I hear a big storm is coming; I do that by walking over to the master breaker switch from the power company and shutting it off. Like clockwork, 45 seconds later the house is lit back up as the generator is up and running.

Most importantly, this generator is automatic. As a volunteer firefighter, I wanted a unit that would start up and run automatically, since when we loose power there's a good chance I'll be too busy out on the fire trucks to go dragging a portable out of the garage and wiring it in.

Back about 10 years ago, this kind of permanently-installed generator was less common. The Generac line was really one of the first for consumers. At the time, automatic standby units were for businesses and public safety use. Big commercial units were simply out of the range for home use. My Guardian was purchased and installed professionally -- including the transfer switch and wiring -- for around $5500. I'm told they're available for much less now. There are also other products out there -- mostly higher-end ones like those from CAT -- that are great, but still too expensive for the average rural homeowner.

Honda makes great portable generators, like the previously-reviewed EU Series, which is enough to keep the fridge or freezer cold, or switch over and run the furnace to keep the house warm, but they're heavy, tricky to set up for many people, and don't hold as much fuel. At 12kw, the Guardian can run my whole house as long as I don't go crazy. The electric dryer and the air conditioner in my server room are not connected to breakers served by the generator, but everything else is. We're careful not to use all the burners on the stove and the microwave and oven all at once, but otherwise, it's just like being on the grid. The generator burns just under a gallon of LP gas per hour on a light to average load. With the tank I have, I can go several days if need be, which is plenty of time to arrange for a delivery of more fuel. During this blackout, my neighbors have even come over to cook and use the shower while their houses are still without power and they're struggling to keep enough heat in to keep the pipes from bursting. I can't think of a better testimonial than that.

My older model doesn't have Generac's new "True Power" feature that provides a cleaner power cycle for sensitive electronics, so I use battery backup units with AVR (automatic voltage regulation) on that gear. Newer Generac models provide this themselves. The one linked to below appears to be the newer version of mine in terms of size/market/capability, but it's only $3k. Given that it includes the transfer switch, that's a hell of a deal. For a cheapo 1 or 2 kw portable generator and transfer switch you'd pay around a thousand bucks.

-- Andrew Pollack

Generac Guardian Automatic Standby Generator
$3,050
(12 kW)
Available from Lowe's

Or $3,000 (10 kW) from Amazon

Manufactured by Generac Power Systems, Inc.

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Visual Aid

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:10:45 -0800

The toughest challenge with conveying information in any context is concision. This simple little reference presents *a lot* of random facts in less than 200 pages with a cleverness and colorful style that's well worth emulating. Everything from worldwide ocean currents to guitar chords, all the foot's reflex points to a time line of 19th century painting and industry (on two pages), how to make eight pancakes and much more. As a writer, I find all the size/speed/shape comparisons to be great fodder for potential similes: the girth of various insects, the world's fastest animals, the height of fictional characters like Jabba the Hut and the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters (13 feet and 131 feet, respectively). You can find all this stuff online, of course, but that's only if you'd even think of searching for it in the first place. Whether you use words, pictures, film or any or all of the above, this guide is sure to educate and entertain. But don't take my word for it. The designers I work with at Wired are smart and accomplished and, therefore, difficult to impress. When I showed one of them this book, he smiled and gave it two enthusiastic thumbs up.

-- Steven Leckart

Visual Aid:
Stuff You've Forgotten, Things You Never Thought You Knew
and Lessons You Didn't Quite Get Around to Learning
Draught Associates
2008, 196 pages
$12
Available from Amazon

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Habitat for Humanity ReStores

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:03:25 -0800

As a builder, woodworker and general do-it-yourselfer, I've been in my local ReStore every week since they opened. The concept behind Habitat for Humanity's ReStores is a building supply thrift outlet whose proceeds go to funding more Habitat projects. Everybody wins. Everything in the stores is salvaged, used, dontated or surplus, so the prices are incredibly reasonable. I just refinished a garage for well under half of what I would have paid retail by buying most of the supplies from a ReStore -- everything from the lighting to OSB board and 2x4's we used to make the temp walls. We even found some sound-deading insulation which helped sound-proof the place. So you never know what you might find.

The store in Dover has a volunteer demo crew that goes a few times a month on various demo projects and they usually produce a lot of usable material. The stock and materials do vary from week to week, but they have everything from engineered hardwood floors to tools to kitchen sinks. The quality also varies, but really only when dealing with items such as sheetrock and lumber. All the appliances are in working order and, at least at the one in Dover, there's a large selection of very nice kitchen cabinets. As a carpenter, I also go in during the day just to buy extra nails, joist hangers, and other little odds and ends that add up at the end of the year.

Currently, there are ReStores in 47 U.S. states and 9 Canadian provinces.

-- Dave Marcoux

ReStores

Available in the United States & Canada

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Rope Ratchet

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:53:35 -0800

I wanted to rig a single line of rope across the ceiling of my garage for a storage solution, but was concerned about getting the line tight enough to keep from sagging. Rather than tie up a come-along winch -- which requires a lot more hook up room and has a tendency to release quite hard -- I saw the Rope Ratchet and decided to give it a try; I'm glad I did. The contraption is basically a rope that's fed into and around a ratcheting wheel and bracket that holds the line and prevents backspin; you can release the line with a lever. It's quite simple, but I haven't seen anything quite like it. I'm using one to hold up a 70-lbs. tackle bag 6 feet off the floor of my garage and another holding about 80 lbs. of plastic lures on a rope stretched across hooks against the ceiling of my garage. I'm using the 1/4-inch Rope Ratchet that's rated for a working load of 150 lbs., but there are different sizes for different needs: the 1/8-inch will hold 75 lbs. up, while the 1/2-inch will hold 500 lbs. After a number of months, mine are holding strong with no sign of failure.

-- Doug Mainor

Rope Ratchet
$9
(1/4-inch, w/rope, pic above)
Available from Carolina North Mfg.

Or $12 from Amazon

Other sizes available for $5 - $20 from Carolina North Mfg.

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Mag-Safe Safety Glasses

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:09:43 -0800

After I lost a pair of very nice sunglasses that slipped off my head during some overzealous dancing, I vowed for my next pair to put function before form. The benefit of these photochromic safety glasses is not only their low relatively-low cost and snug fit, but also their versatility. They keep off glare when I'm driving, protect me from wind when I’m biking -- day or night -- and shield my eyes when I go to the machine shop to work on projects. The lenses run almost perfectly clear to a nice, dark tint in the sun, with nearly 100 percent UVA/B protection. They have an ANSI Z87.1+ rating, which means they’re shatter-proof even when struck by a 1/4-inch steel ball at 150 feet/second. The lenses are polycarbonate, so a significant scrape against sand, ground, etc. would probably scratch them. In the six months I've been using them, I've dropped them lightly a couple times and they're still pretty much like-new.

Over the summer, I worked in a machine shop lathing, sawing, drilling, tapping metal and wood twice a week for 3-4 hours and a couple weekends straight through until Burning Man. Unlike the cheap, standard shop glasses which I'd constantly put on and remove and occasionally forget to put back on, these are so comfortable I rarely take them off. It's important to note they do not seal all the way around your face the way some safety goggles do -- i.e. the ones with flexible rubber sides that press up against the skin. On the one hand, that's why these are much more comfortable, but then again, that makes these potentially unsuitable for tasks where full coverage is recommended. For my usage, though, which is primarily partial-coverage tasks, they're great. Definitely one of the most functional things I own, and considering they're safety glasses, they look pretty good.

-- Eric Nguyen

Mag-Safe Safety Glasses
$40
Available from Amazon

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