video News & Reviews

Ultra compact drills are on everyone's wish list and Festool now has their fans covered with their very own 10.8-volt. Their new CXS drill has a special design that is said to offer better ergonomics and more comfort. Most other ultra compact drills use a battery-in-handle design because there is really no other place to put the battery. Festool chose to go with a D-handle design similar to their other drills, and moved the battery to the bottom of the drill. This allowed Festool to design the handle around comfort instead of the battery, and it also gave the...

Tool organization is not one of my strong suits, so when Veto Pro Pac said they wanted to send me one of their tools bags to review, I happily accepted. What they sent out was their LC bag, the smallest of their closed top bags. You might be unfamiliar with Veto Pro Pac because they are not something you will find in your local bigbox store, but they have become popular amongst contractors because of their design functionality, and high quality build. I think the problem with most tool bags is they...

Remember a few days ago I went on a rant against carpenters pencils? I also talked about my new favorite carpenter pencil replacement, the Staedtler graphite 771. Well, I put together a little video to show you its cool features. The 771 is now my go-to pencil throughout the day, though I do keep a .7mm on hand when greater accuracy is needed. I don't think this pencil was designed for carpenters, but it has a lot of great features on it that suit our needs.

Lenox Tools posted a video on YouTube of some clever new hole saws they have designed. What is the one problem that we all face with hole saws? It is getting those darn hockey pucks out of the saw. We spend more time trying to empty the saw then we do using the saw. Manufacturers try to solve this problem by adding slots or holes to the sides and bottom of the saw, but they never do a good job. Finally Lenox came up with something that might actually work; they added a slot to the side with steps...

I was perusing the Bosch website the other day and came across a new table saw, the GTS1031 compact 10" worksite table saw. The GTS1031 is much different than your typical portable jobsite table saws and was specifically designed to be more compact, light weight, and portable. Many people simply do not need the full ripping capacity that a typical jobsite saw offers, and the 18-inch capacity that the GTS1031 offers is more than enough. The GTS1031 weighs in at 52lbs, which is 8 lbs less than their full sized jobsite saw, but is not as...

There are a few different tool vests on the market today that I know of, a couple from Occidental Leather and one from Blaklader, but the vest from Vest-Tech appears to be the most thought out. The Vest-Tech goes with a different design versus the other two and has mostly smaller pockets along the chest that can handle your hand tools. At the top is a pocket for your notepad and a protected safety glasses pocket. Moving to the back of the vest along the bottom is a hammer loop, a few screwdriver loops,...

Festool posted a teaser video on youtube of their new CXS Ultra Compact Cordless Lithium-ion Drill. The drill is expected to be released this May (the month of my birth *hint hint*) and will be powered by a 10.8 volt 1.3Ah battery that can be charged in 20 minutes. Festool didn't share very much in the way of specs, but the dill is already for sale in Europe and specs are probably the same. The CXS has a 2-speed transmission that gives us speeds at 0-400/0-1200 RPMs. The drill can be purchased as a standalone kit with a hex...

ProTool Reviews and The WoodWhisperer both have some great articles about SawStop, a new rival flesh detecting table saw safety system, and what the Consumer Product Safety Commission can do to help lesson table saw injuries. It turns out that SawStop as a brand was not the first choice for Stephen Gass, the inventor of the table saw braking system. He originally went directly to table saw manufacturers to try and get them to license his SawStop system from them; but his licensing efforts failed. The SawStop technology was too expensive, heavy, and ruined saws blades after...

Back in the olden days when a man needed a tool, he made it himself; but now all we have to do is head to the local hardware store. Tech is really growing in the construction world, and this makes making your own tools almost impossible. But for those of you looking to get back to your home-made tool roots, check out this DIY ultrasonic distance measure. To make you own ultrasonic measure, all you need is the open-source Arduino ($35), a ping ultrasonic sensor ($30), a display ($50), and a bit of code (free). Of course the whole...

Last night tennis ran into a little problem on one of the courts at the Australian Open, but lucky for us there was a man with a cordless drill to save the day. Tennis is a simple game, but it can only be played if the tennis balls are allowed to bounce. However, last night there was an issue within a small area of the court surface in the Hisense Arena that prevented the balls from bouncing. What looks like a simple coated concrete surface on TV is actually very complex; consisting of multiple layers of rubber...