dwasifar

Here's my solution to organizing the accessories: Since I don't have a second battery, I made a custom fitted Fimo clay block for that space to hold the accessories. Crude but functional.

Howzabout this little Hitachi 12v rotary tool: Check out that clearance price at Lowe's. Don't strictly need this but for $39 I couldn't say no. Comes with a case, which is a big deal for me; I like organization. They included two little bags of accessories, but disappointingly the case has no organization for those, so I'll probably have to improvise something. It's a little butt-heavy when you hold it. I don't think I'd have paid the original $99 price for this, but for $39 it's a hella good deal.

Actually it contains random nuts, bolts, and screws. Easier to root through than a coffee can.

Yes, that's what it's for. You draw a line, rotate the tool (or the piece), and draw another. Where they cross is the center. No need for two tools.

I sincerely hope you're joking.

None of those exactly, but some come close. The wing nut adjustment is to allow the sticks to be lined up with the pen lines: And then its function is obvious: It's a center finder for circles. I found this the other day tucked into a nook under my workbench. Clearly I made it at some point, but I don't remember doing it, or why I needed it. It took me a couple of minutes even to figure out what it was.

Three paint sticks held together on a pivot with a wing nut to tighten them, and pen lines drawn on them: This is a makeshift tool, but what is it for? I know the answer but what's your guess?

Are they behind that tractor? I don't see them.

Maybe it's heat/humidity. You live in hot, sweaty, humid Florida; I live in Chillinois.

That's funny that you and I should buy the very same sets, and you can smell them and I can't.

Today (well, yesterday, actually, but we'll pretend) I bought this Irwin self-adjusting wire stripper: And this 18" Kobalt bolt cutter: And I used the bolt cutter today to make this bin rack out of wire shelving:

So now you clowns have me standing in my garage sniffing screwdriver handles. Out of all the acetate handle drivers, I found only one that really smells bad to me, and I have to put it right up to my nose and take a good snort of it for it to smell objectionable. That one's a Craftsman #1 Phillips, and it's old enough to be distinctly yellow. There's one other that has a faint scent when I put it directly to my nose. But none of the rest of them smell like anything to me. So now is when you jump out of the woodwork and have a good laugh at what you made me do, right?

Yep. Old Craftsman, Husky, Great Neck. They've been in a closed toolbox for most of that time and I really don't notice any particular smell.

Maybe I'm just not sensitive to it. You know, like some people love black licorice and others hate it, which turns out to be a gene thing. Maybe I don't have the stinky-screwdriver detecting gene.

I've got acetate screwdrivers that I've had for probably 30 years. So they'll start stinking any day now?

So that would be a "no" from you, then. I've heard about the stinky-acetate thing, but never encountered it myself.

A while back I posted the question of whether people prefer multi-bit or individual screwdrivers. It actually sort of surprised me that multi-bit drivers don't get very much love, but I thought maybe you guys know something I don't, and decided to try using individual drivers for a while. I just got my garage set up with a nice rolling chest, so now for the first time I have a good way to organize an individual driver set. I tried the Channellock USA set first; that didn't work out, but then BMack posted some killer deals on Craftsman screwdriver sets at Ace, so now my driver rack looks like this: I'm making an effort to reach for these instead of the multi-driver, and I find myself surprised at how good they are for the price (about $15). I'm really liking them, which surprises me. There are about a thousand different competing kinds of screwdriver handle, and you'd think the old-school fluted acetate handles would just feel clunky and awkward, but actually they're comfortable enough that for small project assembly I'm driving screws by hand instead of zipping them in with a power driver. I think old-school has won me back. Anyone else, or am I the only weirdo?

Man, that looks like the best score so far in this thread. Mind telling us where you got that?

Today we are comparing Torx driver sets from Kobalt ($9.99 at Lowe's) and Pittsburgh ($7.99 at Harbor Freight). These are list prices. I paid $8.01 and $6.39 respectively, after factoring in a Lowe's rebate and employee discount (my wife works there), and a 20% Harbor Freight coupon. The Kobalt set has five drivers, T10 through T30 in steps of 5. The Pittsburgh set has those five drivers and adds a sixth in T27 size, and a storage rack, such as it is. The Kobalts are made in USA, apparently by Great Neck. The Pittsburghs, in China. Out of their packages, the Pittsburgh's larger size becomes more apparent. They have larger handles and longer shafts: The included Pittsburgh rack is misshapen junk and should be thrown far away: The Pittsburghs have large, comfortable three-cornered acetate handles with flat surfaces and nicely curved corners. The Kobalts have smaller, more traditional six-sided fluted handles, like any ordinary Great Neck or Craftsman acetate screwdriver you've ever seen. The Pittsburgh handle fits my average-sized hand nicely and feels comfortable to use: By comparison, the Kobalts are a little cramped to hold: I do not really have giant balloon hands, that's just the perspective of the photo as my phone camera struggles to take closeup shots. The Kobalts have the Torx sizes printed on the handles. The Pittsburghs do not, which is a pretty stupid thing to leave off. All in all the casting quality of the handles is nicer on the Kobalt, but the Pittsburgh are more comfortable to use. Looking at the tool shafts, we can see Pittsburgh advertises that they are chrome vanadium. The Kobalt set is apparently just ordinary screwdriver steel with no special claims made. This gives the Pittsburgh drivers a brighter chrome appearance, which would be a nice thing if it didn't emphasize the coarse machining: That's Kobalt on top, Pittsburgh below. The grooves on the Pittsburgh tips are rough and sloppy, and vary in length. The Kobalt aren't perfect either but they're still a lot better. That doesn't seem to translate to differences in actual driving performance, though. Both of them adequately gripped the Torx screws I tested them on, with about the same acceptable amount of play. The final and most tedious test was shaft straightness. Crooked screwdrivers are a particular peeve of mine, and here's where the Pittsburgh drivers really fall down. I checked for shaft alignment by setting each flat side of the driver in turn on a flat surface, and measuring whether the tip had any runout. Five of the six Pittsburgh drivers had significant runout, about 1/8" in most cases. This one is typical: In those two photos, you can actually see the deflection in relation to the white paper background. The Kobalt drivers had no such problem; every one of them was 100% straight. Pittsburgh has the price advantage, better shaped and sized handles, and you get one more driver. But they aren't straight, they don't look particularly well-made, the six identical handles don't have size markings, and the rack doesn't count in their favor, being as it's an insult to your workshop. What I really wish is that Kobalt would adopt the Pittsburgh handle design. But I'll put up with the inferior Kobalt handle shape rather than put up with the Pittsburgh set's other failings. Verdict: Kobalt.

Today I used the Harbor Freight one day coupon and got a 1/2" speed handle and a Torx driver set: Shortly thereafter I was at Lowe's and decided to grab one of their Torx driver sets too, for comparison. I'll write it up in the hand tools section soon. EDIT: Comparison is here.

Man, I really blew my opportunity on this one. It was $349 just a couple of weeks ago, and now it's $479.

Are you looking at jobsite saws with rolling stand, or just benchtop units?

Where'd your Swanson come from? Current ones are made in China.

Well, I had my first chance to use these today. Did a brake job on my wife's car; the front brake caliper brackets have a stupid clearance problem on one of the bolts. You can crack it loose with a socket, but you can't back it all the way out with one. Box end ratchet to the rescue. Darn if these wrenches aren't unexpectedly nice. I don't WANT them to be good. I want cheap Chinese tools from Harbor Freight to suck. But they don't. The ratchet action is smooth and tight, and they're well balanced. I was glad to have them when I needed them.

I decided to do a little comparo of combination squares for the edification and amusement of you, the reader. Included in this comparison are a PEC 12" blem (meaning a factory second for cosmetic reasons); a Johnson 16"; the Stanley 12" I've been mostly using up until now; and, to represent the bargain bin, a Pittsburgh 12" purchased from Harbor Freight especially for this comparison. Country of origin:Pittsburgh: China (duh)Stanley: Not marked, presumably ChinaJohnson: USAPEC: USAPrice:Pittsburgh: $7Stanley: $10 (approx.)Johnson: $17PEC: $33 (remember it's a blem, though; perfect would be $75)Weight:Pittsburgh: 196gStanley: 284gJohnson: 354g (but remember this is a longer one than the others)PEC: 422gIt's interesting that the PEC is over twice as heavy as the lightweight Pittsburgh. But the PEC has a larger head than all the others, about half an inch longer on the base.Finish:Pittsburgh: Not surprisingly, it's kind of rough. There are mill marks on the base: And the ruler has a slightly sloppy end and evidence of clamp damage during manufacturing, about 1/2" from the end and another about 1-1/4" in:On the plus side, the Pittsburgh has a square groove, like the PEC, and although the milling on that is sort of sloppy at the bottom, it's straight where it counts, and it slides well. Its number stampings are flush and blacked in, making it pretty easy to read. And although the end is a little sloppy, it looks like the first marking on each scale is pretty accurate.Stanley: The milling is better than the Pittsburgh:But the ends are sloppily cut and inaccurate:In that second picture I'd say that's off by at least 1/32". The stamped scale markings are thick and have a lot of flare-up around them, making them difficult to read accurately. It slides easily but sloppily. The groove in the Stanley's ruler is smaller and appears stamped rather than milled as the other three:That rough area at the bottom of the groove is the STANLEY brand stamping pushing through from the reverse side. It doesn't affect function but it seems careless.Johnson: Surprisingly the milling looks a lot like the Pittsburgh:But the ends are better and more accurate than the Stanley:They look pretty good, but I think the Pittsburgh beats it. Readability has the same problem as the Stanley, but not as pronounced, because the stamped scale has finer lines that don't flare as much. It slides smoothly.PEC: As expected, this one has the best finish, both on the head and on the rule:Readability is outstanding, far better than any of the others. The ends are nice and square, no slop at all, and they look accurate to the first marking on each scale. It slides nicely and feels good, but surprisingly it takes more force on the adjustment knob to secure the head, and correspondingly more force to loosen it.Levels:None of the levels are really great. Of the four, the most accurate was the Pittsburgh. The Stanley leans inward, the Johnson leans outward, and the PEC leans outward just a tiny fraction. The PEC is the least visible. I suppose that means it's the most protected, but it's so small as to be mostly unusable. Fortunately I rarely ever need it.Squareness: The picture tells the story:Of the four, the Stanley was the least square, followed by the Pittsburgh and Johnson (pretty similar), and then the PEC which was pretty much zeroed in.My conclusion: Obviously the PEC is the winner. It's clearly a pro tool on a different level than the others. But of the others, I'd have a hard time choosing between the Johnson and the Pittsburgh. The Johnson feels more substantial and slides a bit more smoothly, but the Pittsburgh is more readable and has more accurately machined ruler ends.The Stanley is going bye-bye. It doesn't win in any category. It's the unsquarest, has the sloppiest ruler, and is the hardest to read. The Pittsburgh beats it handily, and that's pretty pathetic when you consider that the Pittsburgh only cost $7. I'm disappointed that an established brand like Stanley is getting knocked down by a Harbor Freight tool you can buy for pocket change, and I worry about what that means for Craftsman in the future.