I’m the last guy who wants to get in a fight, but I’ve had the same idea I’m sure a lot of you have while hefting a meaty Maglite: if worse comes to worse, I could give a bad guy a good thwack with this thing. Rothco has expanded on that notion with their side handle system. It turns any C or D Maglite into a police style tonfa club, for defense or just showing off your mad flashlight-twirling skills.

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It always brings a big smile to our face when we see a group of kids learning about tools and what to do with them. Reader tmib seattle posted up a few pics of a local scout troop getting down on blacksmithing and forge work.

We love seeing this because it’s essential that youngsters learn early both how cool and how handy working in the shop can be — whether it’s metal work like this or plastic hobby-crafting. We have to pass the crafting spirit along to the next generation, or they’ll start to lose something very indefinable — until it’s gone.

It’s a little soapboxish and corny, but if you teach love of the shop — and the projects and tools in it — to young kids, they’ll carry it the rest of their lives.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

An optical center punch can introduce a whole new level of accuracy to your projects. With the On Mark optical center punch, you can punch within .002″ of your mark, so your final hole position will be about as accurate as it gets.

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Recently we were testing some hole saws in the Toolmonger shop, and we managed to get a giant, circular hunk of two-by-four stuck in a saw. After some thought we ended up removing the chunk with a small drill bit and a large common screwdriver, but we started wondering if any of you have a better solution.

I found some interesting tools that could’ve helped — a slug ejector for $12 and a hole saw hook for $5 — but waiting for a tool to ship would’ve been downtime with no hole saw.

What would you have done? Let us know in comments.

Macro Hole Saw [Flickr]
Slug Ejector [Qk-Saw Store]
Hole Saw Hook [mytoolstore.com]

Irwin’s 25′ Strait-Line tape measure features a pencil-less, quick-marking tip. Simply measure out your distance, press the bottom of the tape against your material, and mark your line. I wouldn’t recommend using this for precision work, but for rough marks I’d use it all day long.

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It’s been a busy week here at Toolmonger. If you’ve been spending time in the shop — you should! — and you haven’t had a chance to keep up with Toolmonger this week, we suggest you start with these posts, which our readers helped to select:

Turn Over A New Leaf To Gauge Hole Size
When you need to measure the diameter of a hole, you can either start looking for objects about the same size for comparison or reach for a taper gauge. Aptly named for their tapered shape, the taper gauge measures hole and slot sizes quickly and accurately. The Starrett No. 267 taper gauge can measure hole and slot sizes from 1/16″ to 1-1/16″, to the nearest 1/64″.

Cheap-Ass Tools: $15 HF Micro Die Grinder
With Harbor Freight’s micro die grinder, you can grind or sand in tight areas or go to town on a carving project. The 1/8″ collet will accept most Dremel bits, which makes it good for all sorts of jobs — from sanding down the burs on your safety glasses to polishing up your iPod.

An Ambidextrous Tape Measure
Reading a tape measure upside-down is a good way to make errors, so FastCap makes a tape measure in their ProCarpenter line that reads both left-to-right and right-to-left. You don’t have to twist your neck to read the scale, so you’re less likely to misread the tape and wind up making a cut short or long when dyslexia kicks in.

How To: Build A Giant Dinosaur
Why build a giant dinosaur? Kids – and adults – love ‘em. And nothing spruces up a dinosaur-themed birthday party better than a giant wooden dinosaur. The best part: you can build your own for around $150 and a little sweat. It’s time to break out your tools for something whimsical.

Woodworker’s Bling
If Marlon Brando had carried a carpenter’s rasp in The Wild One, this would have been it. This rasp, originally used by staircase makers to smooth curved handrails, can shape tightly curved or concave areas where a straight rasp won’t work — but we can’t help but point out how mean it looks. Anything that looks like Klingon battle armor is good with us.

Help us choose next week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well. While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of the article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once. You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference. We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Protect your ears, the ozone, and your wallet, all at the same time. Amazon is selling bulk boxes of 50 corded, reusable earplugs via Mytoolplace.com for $30, with free shipping. The earplugs feature a noise reduction rating (NNR) of 27dB.

Bulk Milwaukee Earplugs [dealnews.com]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

(Friday, May 9th, 2008) It’s Friday again, with nothing new on Home or DIY, just the same old tired reruns. But again we have salvation in the form of Forge and Anvil.

All times are central.

• Holmes on Homes: Out of the Ashes (Part 2) (Home, 5:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Cars, Grocery Carts, Rapid Tooling and Prototyping, Collectible Coins (Discovery, 6:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Steel Shipping Drums, Police Whistles, Miniature Train Cars, and Glass Blocks (Discovery, 6:30 p.m.)
• Toolbelt Diva: Deck the Hulls (Home, 7:00 p.m.)
• Take Home Handyman: Shedding It All: Alex & Danny (Home, 7:30 p.m.)
• Hammered With John & Jimmy DiResta: The Stained-Glass Panel (DIY, 8:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: magnets, cooked ham, silver-plated teapots, crash-test dummies (Science, 8:00 p.m.)
• Holmes on Homes: Bargain Basement (Home, 8:00 p.m.)
• Wood Works: Veneering Tips and Techniques (DIY, 8:30 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Curling Stones, Refrigerators, Alumnium Baseball Bats, Opalescent Glass (Science, 8:30 p.m.)
• Wood Works: Folding Panel Screen (DIY, 9:00 p.m.)
• Build It Bigger: Boot Camp (Science, 9:00 p.m.)
• New Yankee Workshop: Outdoor Cupboard (DIY, 9:30 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Aluminum Pots and Pans, Artificial Limbs, Peanut Butter, High Intensity Light Bulbs (Discovery, 10:00 p.m.)
• Cool Stuff: How It Works (Science, 10:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Pocket Knives, Soapstone Products, Electric Pole Transformers, Traditional Snowshoes (Discovery, 10:30 p.m.)
• Cool Stuff: How It Works (Science, 10:30 p.m.)
• Forge and Anvil: More Furniture. Episode 108 (RFD-TV, 10:30 p.m.)

Enjoy.

Whether you’re navigating the urban jungle or you just want to hop the neighbor’s fence to crash his patio party, the Tactical Fence Climber will get you to the other side a little faster. ZAK Tool designed it especially for police and fire departments — the tool creates sturdy scaling rungs on both sides of a chain link fence, for rapid traversal.

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Cable ties belong in the esteemed category of tools that includes gaffer’s tape, super glue, and locking pliers — they’re almost infinitely useful, and if you’ve got some, you’re halfway to fixing nearly anything. However, if you’ve ever spent time bundling up a bunch of cables just right, only to have to snip apart all your hard work when you notice what you did wrong, you owe yourself a big bag of releasable cable ties.

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File this one under Reckless. This guy was just asking for it, and — guess what? — he got it. I still don’t understand why he had to stand on the top step; ladder manufacturers print “DO NOT STAND” up there for this exact reason. Even so, I’ve committed that sin a few times myself, but I did so with extreme caution. Fortunately the guy wasn’t hurt — or was he?

The Task Force jigsaw we have here in the shop died last week. We’d like to be upset about it, but we’re actually amazed it lasted this long. The Task Force cost us $19 brand new — and though it was never a looker, it did work for a little over a year.

When you break it down, our saw cost us a little over a dollar a month during its time here. We’d have liked it to hold on another year, but the non-stop action in the shop of hard knocks didn’t exactly prolong its service life.

In the end we’re left with this question: Is it better to pay up for a longer-lasting tool, or to take the disposable tool for all it’s worth and see what you get out of it? Looking back over the life of the saw this last year, we’re inclined to think we got our money’s worth out of it. What do you think? Is this a bad deal or a great way to get some work done cheap? Let us know in comments.

Task Force Orbital Action Jigsaw [Lowe’s]

When the proud day finally comes, and your son/daughter/mother/girlfriend loved one is finally moving out, what tools do they need?  Whether you donate some of your extras or head off to the big box in search of a tool kit, you’ll have to decide which tools are the essentials for someone moving out on their own.  From previous posts, we obviously all agree that they’ll need a knife, at least a utility knife — but what about wrenches, pliers, and other handy life-saving tools?

Let’s say you’re limited to what can fit in a small tool bag, like the size of an overnight bag, or an average-sized men’s boot.  What critical tools go with your loved one, to get them through the shock of not being able to borrow yours?  And which tools do you wish would fit in the boot?  Let us know in comments.

When you’re setting posts for a deck or fence, you need either an extra set of hands or some jury-rigged bracing to keep the post plumb until the concrete sets. But with Cepco’s Post-Pod, you can set up and hold posts without the extra helpers.

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You know a tool’s good when the only place you can buy it is from the online corporate store. The Flexiwrench Plus smart tool system is so hot, they can’t keep it in stock anywhere else. Yes, I’m being sarcastic. The system features two different handles, each with a 3/8″ socket that accepts different wrench or socket heads, similar to the Stanley MaxDrive.  One handle sports two pivot points for snaking the wrench into hard-to-reach places, and the other handle functions like an articulated screwdriver.

In addition to the handles, the 19-piece Flexiwrench Plus set includes 3/8″, 7/16″, 1/2″, 9/16″, and 5/8″ open-end, box, and socket heads; a universal socket adapter for using standard 3/8″ sockets; and a generic looking case.

We can’t vouch for how well this tool works, but we’re pretty sure it isn’t the tool set we’d choose if we crashed our boat into a desert island. Can anybody take this tool seriously considering the Comic Sans-like font they chose for the case?

It’s a little late for Mother’s Day, but only $20 buys the Flexiwrench Plus 19-piece set for the father that has everything — if you really want to disappoint your father.

Flexiwrench Plus [Corporate Site]

(Thursday, May 8th, 2008) New episodes of Overhaulin’, American Chopper, and Cool Tools will keep you glued to the set tonight. Modern Marvels reminds us once again that we should get the mower working…

All times are central.

• Break It Down: Bridge (National Geographic, 5:00 p.m.)
• Holmes on Homes: Out of the Ashes (Home, 5:00 p.m.)
• Modern Marvels: Yard Tech (History, 6:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Aluminum Pots and Pans, Artificial Limbs, Peanut Butter, High Intensity Light Bulbs (Discovery, 6:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Pocket Knives, Soapstone Products, Electric Pole Transformers, Traditional Snowshoes (Discovery, 6:30 p.m.)
• Overhaulin’: Wake Up Call (TLC, 7:00 p.m.) NEW?
• Classic Tractor Show (RFD-TV, 7:00 p.m.)
• Cool Tools: Demolition (DIY, 8:00 p.m.)
• Ax Men: A Logger’s Thanksgiving (History, 8:00 p.m.)
• American Chopper: Production Bike Showcase (TLC, 8:00 p.m.) NEW
• Cool Tools: In the Garage (DIY, 8:30 p.m.)NEW
• Dirty Jobs: Aerial Tram Greaser (Discovery, 9:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Gummies, Ball Bearings, Fish Farming, Bronze Sculptures (Discovery, 10:00 p.m.)
• How It’s Made: Bronze Bells, Wooden Airplane Propellers, Charcoal Briquettes, and Gas Log Fireplaces (Discovery, 10:30 p.m.)

Enjoy.

Cortec corrosion inhibitors sold at Lee Valley will protect your rust-prone tools for up to two years. Instead of coating your tools with sticky, greasy, or oily substances, just throw one of these anti-corrosion emitters into any enclosed box, cabinet, or drawer where you store your tools.

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