Makita 6952 Impact Driver

Variable tool speed for a wide variety of driving applications

I have been working on finishing out a cabin in Vermont for a couple of years. Last year I ordered a monster load of Eastern White Pine 1 x10 flooring. At first I was going old school and nailing it down with cut nails into the face, however this *is* a cabin and I wanted to get done during my lifetime. After much research and trials I decided to use Spax Double lock thread stainless steel screws, which is should be another cool tool and outstanding product.

With a couple of thousand screws to set I looked around and found the Makita corded 6952 Impact Driver. This machine is a work of art. Runs like a fine Swiss watch, super quality. No batteries to charge. I cannot recommend this tool enough after driving many, many screws in different types of wood. I have also driven big construction screws with ease using this bad boy. If you don’t really need the mobility of a battery powered impact driver, this baby can handle it all.

Music Stand Light

Extra bright sheet music illumination

They finally made the ideal music stand light. As a middle-aged professional musician (pit orchestra, big band, latin music, etc) my first priority is a light that’s bright enough – this model by Mighty Bright does the trick. Do not mistake it for the light output of their popular two-pronged model, I would need about three of them to provide the same amount of light. This will illuminate a chart that’s four pages wide; and I often angle it to help light the music for someone next to me who’s forgotten their own light. Other very helpful features are a 13 foot cord for AC power, it can run on batteries (I never use batteries – the cord’s always long enough), there are two brightness settings, and it has a nice nylon case.

Sure, there are cheaper lights available, but they’re not as well reviewed and may not provide as much light nor be as well made.

Clutch Gear PVC High-Viz Mechanics Glove

High-visibility winter mechanics gloves

One problem with fall and winter cycling is keeping your hands warm. Regular fingerless cycling gloves won’t do it. You can buy full-finger “cool-weather” cycling gloves for about $30 and up, but they don’t have any insulation to speak o. (They do feature bright day-glo colors and reflective materials, which is good for safety, especially since night comes early in winter. Responsible cyclists use their hands to signal turns, so their hands need to be visible.) You can wear regular winter gloves, but they tend to be black, and often aren’t very flexible. But these gloves have it all.

“Clutch Gear” seems to be Superior Glove’s line of close-fitting, comfortable work gloves. These particular gloves come in bright lime green, with strips of reflective material across the knuckles and wrist. They have a waterproof/breathable membrane similar to Gore-Tex, and though in my experience such membranes in gloves haven’t always stayed waterproof, they do make the gloves reliably windproof.

The gloves are insulated with 100-gram Thinsulate, a premium material often used in gloves and boots. The palms and fingers have a layer of high-grip, abrasion-resistant PVC material. Being mechanic’s gloves, they are pre-curved and quite flexible, making braking and shifting easy. It hasn’t been cold enough yet here to see how warm they are, but having experience with gloves of similar construction, I have no worries. They will work until there is several inches of snow on the ground.

In the Large size, on Amazon, they cost $11. I cannot fathom why. Other sizes cost $33, which is about par for these materials and construction. So if you wear size Large gloves and want to have the warmest, safest, cheapest cycling gloves there are, get these. If you don’t wear size Large, they are still a great glove for a reasonable price.

Casio G Shock GD350

Countdown timer function has a large, easily identifiable button for direct access

I have been using this watch for nearly two years and I’m continually impressed by its functionality. Specifically, I use a combination of two particular, rather unique features of this watch: 1) a vibrational alarm (which can be used instead of or in conjunction with the standing beeping alarm) an 2) a dedicated “START” button for the watch’s count-down timer (which the user can set to a pre-determined length of time).

I use these two features together for what I call “two-minute tempos*,” which is where I have the timer set to two minutes, the vibration set to ON and the beeping set to OFF, so I simply press the big silver START button, and a two minute timer begins to count down. When the time is up, my watch vibrates (which is plenty powerful for me to feel every time, yet silent, so there’s no sound to annoy me or anyone else around me — especially important in certain settings).

Of course, either the vibrating feature of the pre-set timer feature could be used independently, or the timer could be used for a different amount of time. It only takes a few seconds to re-program this). If I need to occasionally time something longer than two minutes, I often use multiple iterations of the two-minute interval (i.e. five times in order to count 10 minutes). If I need to repeatedly time something longer than two minutes, I’ll change the timer to a longer length, and then change it back to my default two minutes at the end of the activity.

Other than these features, the watch is durable, comfortable, and well-designed. The layout of the screen is among the best I’ve seen on digital watches, including large, a large easily-readable time display, a day and date display, and lights to show which settings are ON or OFF at the top. Best of all, when the countdown timer is running, it replaces the day and date display, while leaving the time display unmodified, so you can easily check the time or the countdown timer without pressing anything while the countdown timer is running (this is especially helpful when running the countdown for longer periods of time).

*Activities I use “two-minute tempos” for:

• brushing my teeth (a pretty standard two minute activity)
• showering (only for 2 mins b/c I live in California, where there’s a drought, plus most of my showers use exclusively cold water for the benefits of cold-thermogenesis, which makes two minutes feel like a long time!)
• physical activities: hanging from a pull up bar (which I do to practice grip-stretch and to allow traction in my spine), interval-training, self-massage (like with a massage ball or foam roller), yoga, static stretching, breathing exercises (like Wim Hoff’s breathing technique)
• meditating (sometimes a two minute meditation is all I need, whereas other times I meditate by waiting to see how many two-minute cycles it takes until I can remember that the vibration is coming, which I’ve found to be a great mindfulness challenge, because usually I get lost in thought before two minutes is up and then I’m sort of surprised when the watch vibrates)

Voyager Golden Record/Alexa/Way of Life

Recomendo: issue no. 10

Backing:
I just backed the Kickstarter campaign for a replica of the Voyager golden record sent into space that contained the music of Earth for aliens to listen to. The original golden disk was launched in 1977 and contains images, diagrams, and messages explaining humans. The modern replica is three translucent yellow vinyl LPs in an ornate slipcase and book. Very cool project. — KK

Readable:
Wikipedia’s “Unusual articles” page has links to hundreds of eclectic and offbeat articles. Learn about the Korean invasion of Normandy, happy numbers, and the Phantom time hypothesis (it’s really 1719, not 2016 as we’ve been led to believe). I’d love this as a multi-volume hardbound illustrated set. — MF

Tool:
[UPDATE: The Verge reports that “Hola sold users’ bandwidth for botnets“] I am addicted to TOWIE, a British reality show, but Hulu is very delayed on posting recently aired episodes, and the show website has a country block on their videos. Fortunately, Hola, the free VPN proxy service has never failed to bypass the block, so I can get my trashy reality show fix. — CL

Gadget:
We installed AI into our kitchen to get a glimpse of the future. Now we talk to Alexa, and ask it to do all kinds of things. “Alexa, what is on my calendar today?” “Alexa, add granola to my shopping list.” The cheapest way to do this is not with an Echo (size of wine bottle), if you already have speakers, but with the Echo Dot. Size of a large hockey puck, it’s always on, waiting for your command. And it will get upgraded over time. — KK

Tip:
I used the Way of Life iPhone app (sorry, no Android) to make a habit of making my bed. The simple app lets you set up a list of habits you want to make or break. Once a day you touch a red X or a green checkmark to record your success or failure. It took me about two years to get to the point where I don’t think about making my bed. I just do it. It’s free if you track three or fewer activities. The full version, with unlimited activities, is $5. — MF

Downloadable:
Fontsquirrel.com has tons of free fonts, classified by type (e.g., pixel, grunge, retro, etc). They also have very nice “almost free” fonts, usually costing less than $10. — MF

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Plastic Razor Blades

How to remove stickers and jar labels from plastic

LarryA2010 wrote our favorite comment of the week. He will receive a copy of the Cool Tools Catalog. Thanks, Larry!

Here’s his comment (about the Razor Blade Safety Glass Scraper)

I don’t see this as anything “cool” or out of the ordinary. What I did find cool, and useful, was the ScrapeRite Plastic Razor Blades. A much more common problem than decals on windshields, which you deal with, at most, once a year, is those virtually unremovable price stickers and jar labels on PLASTIC. You can’t use an ordinary razor blade on plastic.These plastic blades work a lot better than a fingernail or butter knife. I had to sharpen the edges with 1000 grit wet-or-dry first, and then they worked fantastically. I have to often apply a little naphtha to help it along, and then wipe with naphtha to remove any residue. It is the only readily available solvent that does not dissolve plastic. The plastic holder that comes with them is a piece of crap (can I say that?). It opens up while in use. I usually just hold one in my fingers. I haven’ tried fitting one in the above scraper but they are the same size as single-edge blades so would probably fit.

What’s in My Bag — Wayne Ruffner