Friday, February 21, 2020
Tool News Nirvana - February 20, 2020
Home Fixated: It’s late February now; a typically quiet time of year. Workloads for everyone – homeowners and contractors alike – are in a bit of a hibernation mode. Honestly though, here at Home Fixated, we don’t mind too much because it’s also the time of the year for some big trade shows like World of Concrete and ConExpo. Keep an eye out for our in depth show coverage for World of Concrete coming up in the next few days.
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There are a couple new interesting tools on this week's edition of Tool News Nirvana. First, is Dewalt's new cordless, FlexVolt combination hammer. The first thing that comes to mind when I think about it is power. While I have never used the system, the Dewalt FlexVolt system seems like a top notch, powerful set of tools. That being said I have definitely been converted to Milwaukee and I think their new line of 18 volt Fuel, commercial tools, will be very competitive to the Dewalt tools. The other tool that, while small, stuck out to me was the MuckTape. The idea that the tape measure wipes itself off when retracting it seems like a great idea. While this was designed for the concrete industry, this is something that I could get behind in theater shows. The biggest reason would be when working with steel. I have had multiple tape measures get messed up by cutting fluid and I think this tape would stop that from happening.
There are definitely tools on this list that pique my interest, even without their application in our industry. The DeWalt cordless combination hammer really shows the evolution of heavier battery powered tools, and the integration of smarter tool control technology. We seem to be moving away from classic mechanical control to implementing microcontrollers for safety and ergonomic features, which is definitely a plus. The Makita dust extractors are certainly worth talking about, although I really don't think I would wear a dust collector of that size even if it were battery powered. Keeping with out theme of smart tools, I really appreciate the flat filter design that serves as a self-cleaner, which improves the lifetime of the product as well as the efficiency during normal operation. The self cleaning tape measure produced by Mucktape is really cool and I would be curious to get my hands on it. I often find myself annoyed when making marks on dirty steel especially on the cold saw with coolant everywhere. Finally, there is the ambient noise hearing protection offered by Honeywell. This is awesome since it can be frustrating to communicate while wearing hearing protection, but necessary for our shop. I also like the data-tracking feature, and would be curious what a heatmap of our shop would be.
After glancing over this article initially, the selection of tools was so specific I just had to go back and read the caption for each one. While I still do not know why someone decided to put this selection of tools into one article, I must say that there are some interesting finds. Personally, I am working on researching a portable dust collection system for woodshops and it is nice to see that other companies are also developing their own systems in order to make an effort to try and make shops a healthier work environment. In addition to the dust collection units, the hearing protection seemed innovative. While I have seen over the ear hearing protection that had some software that allowed the user to still hear conversations while blocking out harmful noise, I have never had the technology work that well for me. While I have not used this specific hearing protection, I would be curious to see if that technology has improved at all over the past couple of years.
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