justinkendall

This is what you’re looking for. Unfortunately it has been discontinued but some online retailers still have them in stock. It’s not cheap and some of the retailers are automatically switching it to the newer dc only M18/M12 charger.

I finally bought the M12 PVC Shears. I've been wanting them for 7 years but haven't been able to justify it until now.

Picked up the M12 Soldering Iron from Acme Tools for a few electronics projects.

I assumed RT29 was talking about Ridgid power tools in their original post when they mentioned SBD and DeWalt, so for lack of a better word TTI does own that. Ridgid (Emerson) doesn't really have a line of hand tools equivalent to what SBD, DeWalt, Kobalt, Husky, etc. does if RT29 was talking about hand tools. Either was I was just pointing out that SBD doesn't own Ridgid in either form.

SBD doesn't own Ridgid, TTI does. I doubt they will make a big come back. They may make a small comeback in hand tools in some hardware stores and online but I doubt you will ever see any of their cordless tools again since SBD has Black & Decker, DeWalt, and Porter Cable. You're more likely to see other SBD hand tools being rebranded as Craftsman. Lowes isn't going to bring Craftsman into their stores when they already have their Kobalt brand. It would be a bad financial decision. Why pay SBD for their tools when they can sell their Kobalt tools for likely a larger profit. I also doubt they start making everything in the US. SBD doesn't make everything in the US (and likely never will) so they will probably just keep making Craftsman overseas as well. Besides full size mowers I don't think you will see much OPE at Lowes because again they have Kobalt. You might be able to order it from Lowes.com but I don't think you will suddenly see a bunch of Craftsman products appear in the store.

I feel like the TTI rep would know better. This screams the store is losing sales to nearby Lowes and GM had the idea to compare brands. I wouldn't be surprised if this was gone real fast the next time a TTI rep comes in.

NPS is normally held in the beginning of June. Those boxes look like they're meant to compliment their Heavy Duty Box line they offer in Europe. Not sure why when they offer the same organizer box that we have in the states. I highly doubt we will ever see them over here. They're not even available on any of the EU sites as far as I can tell.

I'm disappointed that the new extractors are not shipping with the Bluetooth module installed already. I'm getting ready to buy a CT 26 (waiting for the new model now) since they're not bringing Bluetooth to the Midi that I originally planned to buy. The button on the hose basically makes the Bluetooth batteries worthless. I'd rather take an extra second to push the button before using my TSC55 instead paying $110 per battery to use the auto start. This also means you can use the auto start feature with tools that are on a separate circuit like a lot of people seem to do with the Kapex and for other brand's tools. The new hose comes with the extractors. Looks like you won't need to buy the rail deflector anymore since their photos show the new hose going over the bare end of a rail. I guess if you're using a corded tool it's still useful. I'm glad they're putting out a connector set for the Domino 500. It's on my list and I was disappointed to find they only had them for the Domino XL when I looked for them. Might have to pick up the the assortment when I buy the Domino. I don't need the mixer but I am curious how many people decide not to get it because it's corded.

This is why people outside of other tool users/enthusiasts don't know how much my TSC55 cost. If my friends or family knew I spent $900 on a saw they would think I'm crazy. With Festool's 10-Year Parts Availability guarantee for spare parts after an item is discontinued I'm going to have my TSC55 for at least a decade. If they were to discontinue it today it would be like paying $90 a year for the life of the tool before they potentially stop having replacement parts. These same people that would question why I would spend that much money pay $2-3 a day for a cup of coffee which is over $900 a year. So $900 for a tool that will last me at least a decade or $9000 for coffee every day for a decade? It's not hard to see which the smarter purchase is.

It's only on orders of $40 or more though so now is a good time to pickup a set of card scrapers and bench dogs as well.

Lee Valley has a 15pc set (6 convex, 5 concave, and 4 angled) for only $15.90.

They did. The one I bought a few months ago has the upgraded collars.

Picked up two more TSTAK III’s and an Empire 8” x 12” framing square from Acme Tools.

I finally got my hands on some of the Southwire releasable cable ties. I found them on Toolbarn and ordered them at Christmas. Nearly a month later they just came today. Won’t be ordering from them ever again. Also, shipping was more than the actual product.

I can’t believe how many people have bought into DeWalts marketing like suddenly all the jobs are in the USA for their tools and everything is made here. It’s like they listened for “Made in the USA” then put their fingers in their ears for the “with global materials” part. They don’t comprehend that other companies have been doing this for years without using it as a marketing ploy. Milwaukee has multiple facilities in the US where tools are assembled or even things like blades and hole saws are actually made but the DeWalt fans love to say they’re Chinese/Taiwanese made garbage when some of the parts are probably made in the same facilities.

I’m really glad a lot of companies are now painting their competitors tools at shows like NPS and Tough in the South so they’re not directly saying they’re better than the competitor. Obviously Milwaukee didn’t do that with the ToughSystem box at NPS this year but they did at least remove the branding from it and everyone would have known what it was anyway since you really only have the ToughSystem, TSTAK, Ridgid boxes, and Systainers as competition unlike something like drills where one competitor might have 10 different models and you have 10+ competitors. I’ve noticed Bosch has started doing a lot of misleading marketing on Instagram videos in the last year to make themselves look better. This video in particular has a lot of misleading information regarding their tools vs the competitors. Here is my comment from that post. Big surprise they didn’t reply to anyone that commented on it. “The first one with the bandsaw is supposed to be about speed not cuts. The graphic is supposed to show Bosch cuts faster by having a shorter bar in the graphic but instead it just makes it look like the Makita is a better tool. The whole ad makes no sense. They tell you how many cuts the bandsaw and recip saw make but instead of comparing number of cuts to the Makita or DeWalt they compare speed and run time. They also compare run time for the drill instead of the number of holes drilled. Then instead of comparing speed of drilling for the rotary hammer they compare impacts energy. It also doesn't help that they're comparing it to older tools instead of the newest. They used the Makita XPB01 even though the XPB02 has been out. For the recip saw they used a 20v MAX DeWalt with a Flexvolt battery instead of using the Flexvolt recip. They did at least use the newest (non compact) Makita hammer drill. But then they went and used the Milwaukee 2712-20 rotary hammer when the 2715-20 has been out just as long and has nearly twice the ft lbs of energy as the 2712-20 (2712-20: 1.7ft lbs vs 2715-20: 3.3ft lbs). For the record according to the Bosch website the GBH18V-26 they used in the ad only has 1.9ft lbs of impact energy.”

The blind brand loyalty and the Made in the USA comments are the ones I see the most. It’s fine to be brand loyal. I loyal to Milwaukee first because I have so many batteries already it makes more sense to buy their tools. I think they make really good tools. That’s not to say I think the other brands don’t. I have a few DeWalt and Festool tools to purchase. They all seem to be so rabidly loyal about it too. I can’t look at a Milwaukee post on Instagram (that has a lot of comments) without seeing a Milwaukee sucks or DeWalt is better comment. I’m definitely not so loyal that I bought the Packout. Price comes before brand loyalty and my TSTAK’s cost me less than the 3pc Packout would have (not counting the sale they did recently). I think the Made in the USA comments annoy me more. There have been so many comments about how great DeWalt is because it’s “Made in the USA”. I guess people are just going to ignore the part where it says “with global materials”. I was at a tool expo in 2015 and had to stop at the DeWalt booth. There rep started bashing Milwaukee saying they’re made in Taiwan and blah blah blah. He shit up rather quick when I pointed out the big ass banner behind him that said “Made in the USA with global materials”. Another example is the new Southwire Made in the USA line. I saw so many negative comments about their tools because they were made in China. Suddenly they launch the USA line and everyone is saying great things about them because of it. I’ve owned their S1018SOL wire strippers for a year and love them. They are my go to strippers. I picked up their USA made S1018SOL-US version and besides the lock design and color scheme they are basically the same tool. They both cut and strip exactly the same.

I had issues with the Ticks when I first started using them but the issues seem to have been resolved in later app updates. My business is web and mobile app development and unfortunately most companies opt to prioritize iPhone over Android. We have never had a company come to us decide they want to do an Android app first and see how it does before doing an iPhone app. There’s also the incompatibility problem of using code between the two platforms for app development. You might have an iPhone app that works perfectly and when you do the same thing for the Android app you get multiple errors that cause you to rework half of the app to get the same results. Should Milwaukee have made sure that everything worked perfectly before releasing the app? Yes. Is it possible that it was working fine on their local machine and once uploaded to the app stores issues occurred? Yes. No matter how hard you try to make sure an app is working perfectly locally sometimes when it gets deployed bugs occur. it also doesn’t help that you need a decent amount of people to be using the app for the missing tool feature to work well. That’s not on Milwaukee or DeWalt that’s the limitations of Bluetooth. A lot of shops/contractors have not bought into One-Key. Why buy a new tool when the one you have works fine? My cousin sells tools for a living. My One-Key purchases from her in June 2015 where the first from her company. None of her clients bought into One-Key until Sept/Oct 2017 and that was only after I explained how One-Key/Tool Connect/Hilti’s equivalent work so she could inform her clients. Milwaukee (and the other companies) need to spend some time/money actually informing users of the benefits and features instead of just saying you can track your tools and prevent theft. One-Key has been out for almost 3 years now and people still think it’s going to be some magical GPS tracking for their tools.

I made the exact same upgrade in October. I can not believe I was ever able to function with a 16GB 6 Plus now that I have the 256GB 8 Plus. I was at the point where I had to delete photos every day because it kept telling me it didn’t have enough spce even after I removed apps I didn’t use and deleted photos that didn’t look great immediately after taking them. I still delete photos on the new phone pretty much right after I take them if they didn’t come out great or if I accidentally took a burst of photos but that’s not often now that I have portrait mode. I’m never going to get the not enough space message again.

Picked up this Kobalt KB50FT 50’ Laser Distance Measurer at Lowes this morning at 50% off for $19.98. Supposedly only had 3 in stock but there were a ton in the holiday sale area. It’s pretty nice for the price. White text on black, 4 different units of measure (feet & inches, feet, inches, and meters), accurate to 1/8” (good enough for my needs), auto shutoff after 3 minutes, and even came with Duracell (OEM) batteries. You can choose to measure from the top or bottom of the unit. It displays which you’re measuring from in the top left and shows an indicator when the laser is on.

This is my first one. From all of the videos I’ve seen it looks like they’re really useful.

A final late Christmas present showed up. David Barron 1:4 Magnetic Dovetail Saw Guide. And I put an Amazon gift card to good use on an Incra 150mm T-Rule.

I haven’t had a chance to use them yet. They seem like a quality set considering they’re only $40 on Amazon.

@jtkendall picked me up some nice hand tools for Christmas. Milwaukee hat Gyokucho 372 Razor Saw Dotsuki Takebiki Saw Stanley Coping Saw Narex 16oz Beech Mallet Narex 4pc Chisel Set Millers Falls 140CBG Jack Plane 1000/4000 Grit Sharpening Stone

Well that sucks. I’ve been looking all over for them and so far no one has them even though Southwire keeps posting about them. I was hopin Acme Tools or Lowes would get them since I buy from them often. Looks like Tool Barn is now selling them but they’re special order so it takes 7-10 days for them to ship.