Today, I’m finishing up 10 mahogany awning windows I fabricated for a contemporary house in New England. The tools I’ve got on my table this afternoon include:

• Fein MultiMaster MSxe 636 II
• Rigid R2600 5″ R.O. Sander
• 1″ Chisel – (I bought in a hardware store in Prague)
• 2″ Purdy XL-Glide Brush
• X-I-M Primer
• 3″ Foam Poly-Brush(es)
• Klean-Strip Wood Bleach
• …and a slew of Sikkens products

The windows are being stained on the interior faces and painted with an exterior primer on all other sides.

I made these windows last week. While the pieces passed from mahogany stock into precisely milled, custom sized awning sashes I thought of how I’ve neglected this website lately and how I always wanted to just write a quick list of a task and what I’m putting to use to complete it.

Today there are just a 1/2-dozen quality weapons of choice in action. I hope to have an article for each tool I include in any subsequent journal entries such as this one.

Have a nice day, my lunch is over and I’ve got to get back to the sanding so I can bleach the interior faces before nightfall.

Maybe I neglected to mention a vital tool on this location:

• Logitech AudioStation
• iPod Touch

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Just checking in to let you know I’ll be updating the site a bit more regularly now that I’ve returned from a long summer break.

Guess what tool I needed but didn’t have with me today! Since I emptied and removed my truck boxes to move something huge, I haven’t quite returned all the tools to the box. I’ve been carrying nearly 100 hand tools for the past forever and thought I’d go through them and carry just what I need. Today I needed a sheetrock saw and didn’t have one with me so I used a razor knife.

Experience:

Wow. I’ve been using one of these for 20+ years and I never knew it was called a ‘jab saw’! The Stanley 20-556 6-Inch FatMax Jab Saw seems to be popular. Mine of course looks like nothing special, resembling this Goldblatt Tool 6″ Jab Saw for $4. Though it doesn’t look special and I have no attachment to this one other than it’s mine, this saw has served long enough. The model saw I have, see photo, should not be called a jab saw because if you were to jab drywall it would bend. You have to hammer this one straight on, which doesn’t mean you can’t bevel cut around an outlet. This is a piece of crap I’ve used a million times.

I’m ready to spend the extra $6 for a new Irwin ProTouch Drywall / Jab Saw or the Stanley 6-Inch FatMax Jab Saw but I’m content with this one until I need a new one.

I recently added the Allway Tools Handy Saw to ToolboxBlog.com as one of the tools in my red toolbox. That Handy Saw I had owned since I was a youngin’. I dicsovered I also own this very old Allway Tools hand saw.

Even though I’ve owned a Handy Saw since I was a kid, it was only today that I learned the blade can fit the handle in more than one way, adding to the functionality for just my application; making cuts in tight spaces.

Check out this old saw:

Reviewing this hand tool for toolboxblog.com refreshed my willingness to carry the tool in my everyday box. Though I will likely use a hacksaw foremost and the Stanley 20-220 Cushion Grip Multi Saw for some specialty cuts; the rigidity and practicality of this Allway Tools Handy Saw are worthwhile.

I keep a few spare hammers in My Red Toolbox. This Workforce hammer cost a few dollars at a nearby Depot and has rarely, if ever, been used.

Experience:

I don’t need to say much about it except that as an employer I find myself lending a hammer to unskilled labor from time to time. Lending tools isn’t a big favorite of mine but when it’s a $7 hammer I have no qualms. I bought 3 hammers for less than $20 and found that one has become my day-to-day 16oz hammer.

This wooden handled 16 oz. Workforce Hammer is just along for the ride as a spare in My Red Toolbox.

I thought I had already written about three of the compasses that I use in my shop but I can’t find the article or the images and now I find myself wondering if I dreamt about writing articles that don’t exist?

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Here is a compass that travels with me to every job inside My Red Toolbox. Bouncing around in my truck box, this compass requires reassembly before use but it’s precision adjustability is just the reason I prefer this one.

Since I’m baffled by the absence of any previous reference to a compass on this site I’m going to keep this short and go look for those pictures. Whoever made this compass neglected to mark it and they are sold under different names, Including General Tools.

Links:

General Tools 842CP Pencil Compass Divider And Scriber

– A better quality tool is the 8″ Compass by Treeline.

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Wow, I am glad I haven’t used this 3.5″ cold chisel from My Red Toolbox in a while. I picked up a few cold chisels long long ago when I did a lot of foundation work. I believe this 3 1/2″ cold chisels is referred to as a Brick Chisel. It’s about right for halving bricks.

Experience:

My career in Home Improvement began with years of intense concrete work. I’m not talking about getting a backhoe to dig a big hole on an empty lot and then crane in forms. I’m talking about hand-excavating under a house built on sleepers and installing posts and beams and a perimeter foundation. I’m talking about working under countless houses in cramped crawlspaces, drilling, digging, forming and pouring concrete for seismic upgrades… I’m talking about building unusual custom shaped form-work and pouring, pumping, shooting…and eventually chiseling concrete.

Carpenters carry cold chisels because part of any handyman’s routine is pouring a new landing for a deck, setting posts in Sonotube and working with existing slabs and walls. Personally, I love the permanency of concrete products and have always enjoyed the hard labor for it’s result.

I am proud to have built some amazing forms and poured walls for both commercial and residential work over the years. I doubt that I missed scratching a five-pointed star, six-pointed star or some Sanskrit in a single one. Here’s my largest width cold chisel; a Dasco Pro.

Links:
Dasco #335-0 2-3/4 Mason Chisel

Footprint 1237 110113 3-Inch Brick Chisel with Grip
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Footprint 1237 110120 4-Inch Brick Chisel with Grip

From My Red Toolbox comes a coping saw; the Eclipse 7CP, made in England. Initially, coping wood trim was never a big favorite of mine and happened only when my boss made me. Now, I don’t mind coping an occasional piece of crown or large base cap for a better fit than mitering.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Experience:

I started my carpentry career remodeling the Victorian style houses of San Francisco. Inside those decorative homes, sometimes all the trim would be coped.

Joining wood molding by method of coping saw results in a high-quality inside corner.

In order to describe my common use for this saw; the process of coping trim, let’s imagine we have to put crown molding in a 10′ x 12′ rectangular room. We cut two boards the full length of the wall with square butt-joints and install them at each end of the room. The two missing lengths are cut the full length, 12 feet, and then comes the cool part. We cut the molding profile into the end of the board with the coping saw so that it mates against the first pieces we installed.

Ironically, the easiest way to figure out the trim profile is to bevel the piece on the miter saw, at which point you may be asking why you are bothering with a coping saw.

The coping joint allows the wood trim to shrink and expand without the joint opening. Coping is old-school but it yields a higher quality product than today’s machine-cut miter joints because it allows for expansion and installs perfectly on imperfect 90º corners.

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Links:
Robert Larson 540-2000 Coping Saw
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Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Experience:

I stopped by my parents house about 20 years ago and found an old toolbox of mine. Actually it was a toolbox made for me, out of wood, by a craftsman and mentor. It’s got my name right on the top and I’ve had it since I was nine or ten years old. Inside I found this hacksaw and I threw it into My Red Toolbox for use on the job.

This type of hacksaw is not easy to use, the blade bends easily. I don’t care to buy replacement blades and have taken it out of the Red Toolbox and retired it. I do use a straight handled device for similar applications called the Stanley 20-220 Multi Saw that’s a little more functional.

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Links:

I’ll admit I was a little surprised to find these for sale at Amazon.com
Allway Tool #HSN Handy Hand Saw/Blades
Handy Saw Blades Set of 2- Met

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Experience:

I went to pick up a new Hart Tool Co. Hickory Hammer only to learn they don’t make them anymore. Wait, this Dead On hammer looks similar… but is it? Not as far as I’m concerned. I like to inspect the grain pattern in my hammer handle. Instead of a classy natural wood finish some Dead On handles are painted black and say ‘Death Stick’ on them. I guess they are marketed toward Punk Rock Carpenters and undertakers. Is a Death Stick for killing or just for nailing shut coffins? It seems they nailed the lid shut on my future with Hart Tool Co. hammers since I switched away from them when they started painting my handles black and forging the heads with a place for stickers. I don’t like the gaudy chichi embellishments on the Dead On hammers.

I have a dozen Hart Tool Co. hammers yet to be posted on ToolboxBlog.com yet because I was hoping to get them all in one photo. I’ve come close, several of these are Dead On;

My Red Toolbox contains tools I don’t use everyday but need in my truck. If I’m going to use wooden handled hammers, I’ve got to carry a spare handle.

Links:
Death Stick DSRH 18