Recent content by neophyte

Yes, I know. Google lists the “Official Makita Color” as “Teal” which is supposedly midway between blue and green. New Makita tools have always looked “Blue” to me, with the older tools looking more green, probably due to the yellowing of the fire retardant chemicals in the plastic over time...

The average person doesn’t even try in many cases to use the “correct” thread size when trying to replace a Screw, or even the correct type of screw. They’ll usually just look for the closest screw size in a bin of miscellaneous screws they may have. Even “professionals” routinely do **** like...

I remember some employee in the tool crib at Home Depot telling a customer that few professional carpenters used Dewalt. This was back in the late 1990s, or maybe early 2000s. I think it was before Hilti started being sold in Home Depot, which would put the date in the 1990s. Admittedly back...

Sanders and many other tools are used in multiple markets. I have run into issues where Festool has failed to list necessary specs on their website, or even in their catalogs years ago. When Milwaukee first introduced cordless square drive impact drivers decades ago, I recall marketing...

The low profile brushless sander actually seems to have entered production after the purchase by B&D, although no clue if B&D were simply using Porter Cable as a test brand to prevent bad designs from potentially being associated with Dewalt.

A quick google search seems to show maybe 5 high schools in Philadelphia with shop classes as an option, out of 47 high schools. I suspect the numbers are off, but most high schools with shops or shop classes nowadays in major cities may be specialty technical high schools, or a small number of...

Fein included a wrench like this with one version of the Multimaster, or maybe with one of the Multimaster accessories. The hex fitted the older screw blade mount for the Multimaster blades and accessories. The cross drive screwdriver fitted some screws for interchanging small narrow blades...

The low center of gravity sanders were being used for production of woodworking going back decades. I believe I saw similar pneumatic sanders being used at Martin guitars back during the 1990s. As far as these low center of gravity sanders ho, other than pneumatic sanders, Porter Cable also...

I have Michael Graves dish brushes with santoprene handles. Every once in a while, particularly when it’s hot and humid, and I leave the brush in the sink with dirty fishes, the brush handles get “moldy”. I just pour pure liquid bleach on the handles to correct the issue. I’ve probably been...

The guides might gave been sold under the JCPenney “Penncraft” brand, judging by this example on eBay, which uses a similar model numbering system.

Some pics of various router guide bushing systems. The step design was used on some older Stanley versions. Stanley’s Power Tool Division was sold to Bosch in 1980. I don’t know if Op’s guides are Stanley versions.

The Best Japanese blacksmiths were excellent at taking the basic steel and iron they had available, and making high quality tools out if that steel and iron, to the extent that the tools are and were considered works of art. That said, even Toshio Odate said there were tool dealers and...

Access to decent steel was an issue in Brazil just a few decades ago, or maybe less. Brazil wanted to build up their industrial manufacturing infrastructure, which caused Brazil to implement very high tariffs, which resulted in decent tooling and steel to be hard to get, and locally available...

It’s vises like this that make me think some vise manufacturers did actually paint the vise slides, at least during certain years of production. That blue looks original, and there are no other colors, but the paint is obviously worn down from decades of use.

South Africa basically had European tier manufacturing capabilities when the South African manufacturing was set up. South Africa also had industrial reasons for needing high quality tools, for industries that involved deep mining, that could also pay well for the tools.