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My oldest remains my favorite:

The workbench that came with my 100-year-old house was beat up, so I bought a box of left-over vinyl laminate flooring at the ReStore for $20 and floated it on top, secured with aluminum molding. It's held up well to both pounding and spills.

The new flatheads are in:

I cheaped out and used a box of leftover laminate flooring from ReStore -- just floated it on top and locked it in with aluminum molding. It's been three years and seems to be holding up well to abuse and spills.

Still tight after a century of abuse:

Here's my 10-incher:

Workbench came with the 100-year-old house with a nice vise and not much else tool-wise. The bench top was dinged from decades of abuse, so I floated a new work surface using laminate flooring from the ReStore and filled with hand tools, mostly from yard and estate sales.

Up in the mountains we rarely get wet, snowman snow, just the fluffy variety. So I've been using a corded leaf blower quite successfully on my walkways and sidewalk. It's quicker and does a better job clearing down to the pavement.

My Dad used to use a Model 12 Winchester, with limited success.

But Trump said magnets don't work under water...

I buy the cheapest washer fluid, but what bugs me is when you get frost on the inside of the windshield. I solved that by habitually knocking snow off my boots while entering and by cracking the windows open when parked on cold, clear days when the humidity is low.

Safer (and easier) to run power in than exhaust out. I wouldn't want a silent killer in the same room.

Agree that you need multiple options. Here in Montana I'll wear sneakers to 20 F, then L.L. Bean hiking boots to about 20 below and colder than that I get out the Sorel pack boots.

This from long ago (when they first came out) but I remember thinking "Why pay Black & Decker for a Workmate" when they're not really a workbench and I already have some saw horses. Time would tell how wrong I was.

Donate them to a Habitat ReStore.

That's a Big Bang cannon that uses calcium carbide mixed with water to produce acetylene gas to make the boom with a Zippo flint sparker. Same chemical process used in old miner's head lamps -- minus the explosion. Had one when I was a kid. We also used on old paint can -- punch a hole in the...

Make your own: Just solder some alligator clips onto 6-gauge solid copper grounding wire and make as many as you need and the lengths you want.

From my brief stint as a plumber's helper in the early 1970s, Channelocks were simply called "pump pliers" and were used for tightening valve packing and for breaking unions that isolated water pumps, for servicing or replacement.

I have a really hard time trashing glass jars and plastic Folger's coffee cans. They build up for about five years and then out they go. (I did donate some matching jars to the ReStore, which uses them to sell small lots of hardware.)

Bard's Hardware in Leola, Pa. They had a 30-foot hitching rail alongside their parking lot for their Amish customers, and their inventory showed it. Brand new old stock likely from when the store opened a century earlier. The last proprietor was a high school buddy and we'd always chat about...