Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.
I want to thank everyone who subscribed last week or convinced others to. I had a satisfying little bump in subs. Let’s keep it going! Please share with your social media feed and with friends. Thanks!****
Talk to me. Tell me a story. Share me a tip. A tool. * Support my work by buying my tips books (Vol. 1, Vol. 2). * Take out an Unclassified in this newsletter to reach fellow makers.
A User’s Guide to Screws and Tap & Die
In these two clickclackclunk tutorials on Instructables, he offers an excellent beginner’s class on screws and tapping of screws. Knowing how to tap threads for fasteners gives you a new kind of superpower for your projects. It’s one of those skills that seems complicated and intimidating, until you do it. With a few specialty tools, some lubrication, and few important techniques, and you’re in like Flynn.
Making a Camera Tracking Shot Slider from a Measuring Tape
Via Maker Update comes this very clever project to 3D print a housing for a measuring tape and some ball bearing wheels so that you can use it as a non-motorized camera slider for creating linear tracking shots with your phonecam. You can even adjust the speed of the tracking by adjusting the pressure on the tape measure.
Which Rattle Can Paint is the Best?
In this Project Farm test (which took a year to complete), Todd tested rattle can paints that cost from $1 to $15. The paints were tested on a vehicle hood and on metal panels kept outside for a year and then compared for chip resistance, paint fade over a year, scratch resistance, and rust blocking. In the end, the winners were Rust-Oleum Pro ($6 at time of testing), Valspar ($10 at time of testing), and Seymour ($11 at time of testing). The big loser was the most expensive of the lot, Sherman-Williams ($15 at time of testing).
How to Create a Steam Box for Wood Bending
Xyla Foxlin recently made a cool bass guitar that used steam-bent wood in its construction. In this video, she shows how she created the steam box.
TOYS! DiResta Ice Pick
I’ve written about Jimmy DiResta’s ice pick before, but I can’t believe I’ve never recommended it as a tool. I use mine almost daily and am always surprised at the different uses I discover for it. There’s even an Instagram tag to document them. Sure, it’s not cheap, and yes, part of the allure is the hip maker cred, but buying one supports an indie tool maker and they’re beautifully made and hand-crafted by Jimmy and his crew. I’ve given several as Christmas presents and my recipients enjoy them as much as I do.
Maker’s Muse
A Roman “Swiss Army Knife,” some 1700 years old. Complete with three-pronged fork, spatula, pick, spike, and knife. Probably something of a luxury item, made of silver, and likely used by the wealthy Roman on the go.
Shop Talk
In response to a question in the last issue about ready-made racks for portable storage cases, specifically Stanley cases, I got a lot of responses sharing projects on how to build them. The person asking the question wanted to buy vs. build, saving him time for more pressing projects. I swear I saw a project years ago to quickly modify baker’s racks to use for this purpose. If anyone knows a link to such a project, please share.
In the meantime, for those looking to build a rack, here are a few projects that reader Craig shared:
Making a Small Parts Storage Rack
Making a Rack for Small Parts Storage with Stanley SortMasters
Become a Patron!Support our reviews, videos, and podcasts on Patreon!
Cool tools really work.
A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.
Drawing from her experience as a professional poker player and decision strategist, How to Decide offers a practical toolkit for making better choices by separating decision quality from outcome quality — teaching you to think in probabilities, overcome cognitive biases, and stop second-guessing yourself.
Core Principles
Stop “Resulting”
“Resulting” is Duke’s term for judging a decision’s quality by its outcome. A good decision can lead to a bad outcome (and vice versa) because of factors outside your control. When you overfit decision quality to outcome quality, you risk repeating errors that preceded a lucky good outcome and avoiding good decisions that didn’t work out due to bad luck.
The Only-Option Test
When stuck between choices, ask yourself: “If this were the only option I had, would I be happy with it?” If you’d be happy with either option, the decision is actually easy — flip a coin. This test reveals that “hard” decisions are often easy because both options are acceptable.
Think in Probabilities
Instead of binary thinking (”this will work” or “this won’t”), assign percentage likelihoods to outcomes. Every decision involves the Three P’s: Preferences (what you value), Payoffs (potential gains and losses), and Probabilities (how likely each outcome is). This framework forces you to acknowledge uncertainty and consider alternatives.
Get the Outside View
Solicit feedback from others before making decisions, but do it right: let them answer first before expressing your own opinion to avoid contaminating their views. Ask them to argue against your position. The goal is getting genuine perspectives, not confirmation of what you already believe.
Try It Now
Think of a decision you’re currently facing with two or more options.
Apply the Only-Option Test to each choice: “If this were my only option, would I be happy with it?”
For each option, list the possible outcomes and assign a probability (percentage) to each.
Apply the Happiness Test: “How much will this affect my happiness in a week? A month? A year?” If not much, spend less time deciding.
If the options still seem close, flip a coin — and notice how you feel when it lands. Your reaction reveals your true preference.
Quote
“The quality of the outcome casts a shadow over our ability to see the quality of the decision.”
