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Cool Tools Library

In the past we've highlighted an astonishing array of useful books that covered topics ranging from bioremediation to underground home building to fermentation. These books are tools because they not only help us learn but also put knowledge to use.

Help us fortify our library of useful books by submitting your favorite text for a particular subject including an explanation of why you think it's essential. We want to feature that dog-eared book that you wouldn't lend to a friend for fear you wouldn't get it back. It can be the best beginner's guide, or a slightly more advanced technical manual detailing materials or techniques. If you can, please include scans of pages that we can use to illustrate the book's content. This has been done before but never with any insight or explanation of what makes the book useful or cool.

What's the essential book for carpenters? Metalsmiths? Landscape designers? Tailors or seamstresses? What about information design? Or sous vide? Tanning or taxidermy? Home brewing? Car repair? Bicycle frame building? The list goes on and on.

Every trade and hobby has their own bible, and we want to identify and collect them all in one place so that others may benefit.

Submit your recommendation (or request) here, post it in the comments below, or feel free to email it to editor@cool-tools.org.

-- Oliver Hulland

Sample Excerpts:

Examples of the kind of books we're looking for:
The only fly fishing guide you'll ever need: The Curtis Creek Manifesto
The mushroom forager's bible: Mushrooms Demystified
The best book on breadmaking: The Bread Baker's Apprentice
The essential cook book: How to Cook Everything
The ultimate bike repair manual:

Safeglides Tap-In Felt Furniture Pads

When you get sick and tired of reapplying those adhesive felt furniture feet to all your furniture every time they come off (go ahead, look under something; a lot of them are coming off or missing aren't they?), you can get these improved ones that I found a few years ago.

The round metal rivet hammers easily into the end of the leg with a tack hammer, and the metal part doesn't break like the kind with the single skinny nail in the center. (And the adhesive kind, as you no doubt have noticed, do not stay properly attached for very long at all.) I have never had one of these fail yet.

This vendor has them for a good price; they have a $25 minimum, which means you have to order about 80. However, you can also get them at Amazon.

-- Charles Kiblinger

Safeglides Tap-In Felt Furniture Pad
$8 for pack of 16

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Highland Woodworking

Sample Excerpts:

User Manual First

In the old days (before the web) you could not read the operating manual or instructions for an appliance, device, or tool until you got it home and unpacked it. Getting the manual was considered one of the benefits of purchasing the product. In fact, you had to purchase extra copies if you lost the original, or wanted to check it out. It was often only later when you finally had the box opened that you discovered a) it did not permit the function you bought it for, or b) it was a quarter inch smaller than it looked and so didn't fit, or c) it was incompatible with the assessors set you already had, or d) it had no manual!

Those days are gone. You can find a PDF version of the manual for most products on the web if you search hard enough. It is not as easy as it should be, but the smarter manufacturers make it easy to download the specs of whatever they sell.

That leads to this new rule: get the manual first, before you buy.

For a large home remodel I had to purchase a pile of new appliances, lights, plumbing fixtures, hardware, materials, gadgets, and some tools. I instituted a "Manual First, Buy Later" policy, and it had immediate positive effects. Once I identified a possible candidate for purchase, I would google for its manual. Equally important as finding the operating instructions and basic specs, is to get hold of the installation instructions. There are few sites that aggregate manuals and specs of major lines, but often I would wind up at the manufacturer's site. There I would download the PDF and read it carefully. That's where you find out its precise dimensions, its actual power needs, its exact connections, its real compatibility. I lost count of the number of inappropriate bad purchases I avoided by studying the manual and specs first.

What baffles me are the clueless manufacturers who still don't put their installation and operating manuals online in 2012. (I'm thinking of you, LG.) The main result of this process is simply fewer surprises. Less returns, better integration.

I was heartened to see that even the professionals do this. Here is a snapshot of our plumber "at work" in the bathroom. He has his tablet opened to a installation PDF, and his phone is googling a help number for questions brought up by specs in the PDF.

Locating any particular item's installation and operating specs is still not as easy as it should be. Amazon could make it the norm to have the full spec PDF for every item they sell, or Google could try to algorithmically sort them out, or some clever aggregator could centralize them all. But for now it is worth seeking them out first, any purchase later.

-- KK

Byline RSS Reader

I've had an iPhone since the first model and despite trying out probably hundreds of apps I have a relatively small collection that I use every day.

One of the things I use my iPhone for every day is catching up with blogs and news through RSS. I'm a reasonably heavy Google Reader user, following 294 feeds (including BoingBoing and Cool Tools naturally). There are a host of RSS feed reader apps in the app store, and *most* of them integrate with Google Reader. I've tried most of them, seduced by the promises of new features and pretty UIs, but I always return to one of the first I tried: Byline.

The Byline Google Reader integration is straightforward, and offers all the features you would expect. These are the same features offered by many a reader:

• Syncing of read items
• Badge showing number of unread items
• Starring and sharing (with or without notes)
• Showing all items, browsing by label or by feed
• Instapaper and mobile safari integration

And so on....

The killer feature for me, and one I've not found in any other reader app, is that Byline caches (optionally and configurably) the webpage associated with an RSS entry. That means that partial RSS entries, or feeds like Daring Fireball that link to an alternative page, have the *actual content* fully stored on the device. When travelling or somewhere without mobile internet you have full access to your RSS feeds and their precious payload of information or LOLs.

Byline isn't perfect, but every time I've tried another feed reader app I've found I can't live without the offline caching and come slinking back to byline. The *biggest* flaw with Byline was the lack of a native iPad app, but since I originally wrote this review a native iPad app was released and it works very well. Byline has only improved in stability and reliability, and I'm still using it every day. Byline coped with the Google Reader changes very well. It hasn't yet got Google + integration, but hopefully that will come soon (but it isn't core functionality anyway).

I did use the old Google Reader sharing feature to post items from reader to twitter via the shared items RSS feed. Funnily enough, despite this feature being removed from the Google Reader UI it still works in byline!

-- Michael Foord

Byline
Free (ad-supported)
$6 (premium)

Available from iTunes

Manufactured by Phantomfish

Raising Chickens for Dummies

A few years ago we decided to join the growing backyard chicken movement. We knew zero about chicken raising. We were interested in keeping a handful of hens for eggs, so we didn’t want info on raising flocks of them (how many eggs can you eat a day?). I read every book for backyard beginners I could find, and after studying ten of them, the one that was most helpful to us was Raising Chickens for Dummies. It did the best job of anticipating our questions for a low-rent minimal approach. For instance, we had no desire to be cleaning chicken-shit every week, and we opted for deep bedding in the coop, a tip suggested by the book.

Our first egg!

We've had chickens for two years now, and the book is still answering questions. The author runs a website, Back Yard Chickens, that has very active forums where you can ask other backyarders questions not found in his book. The site's albums of photos of homemade coops proudly posted by members is very helpful and inspirational.

If you decide to graduate to larger flocks I would point you to the previously recommended book Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, which is extremely comprehensive, but often more than a beginner needs.

Keeping our days-old chicks warm under a heat lamp.

BTW, I was initially skeptical I would be able to tell a difference with backyard eggs, but it's true. Backyard eggs do taste better; they are more...well...eggy. However, they won't be cheaper, even if you don't count your time. We kept our initial costs down by constructing a coop from scraps from a building site in the neighborhood (after asking permission). We had to buy the screening, which is double layered at the bottom (another book tip) because we have pretty serious predators around. We installed the previously reviewed automatic watering dish from the mail-order hatchery McMurray, which means that overall, the five chickens are very low maintainance.

-- KK

Raising Chickens for Dummies
Kimberly Willis and Rob Ludlow
2009, 408 pages
$11

Available from Amazon

One Highly-Evolved Day Bag

I asked Charles Platt, former editor of Cool Tools, what he is packing these days and he replied with this list. It's not your usual selection:

I like to be fully prepared when traveling, but I hate excess weight. This has led to a computer bag containing not just a computer but as many small items as possible, packaged in such a way that they don't fall to the bottom in an undifferentiated mess.

The key to the packaging is to use a modular system based on Darice Mini Storage Boxes (available with or without compartments--I prefer those without). These parts boxes measure about 3.5" x 5.7" x 1.2". They have durable metal hinges and can be stacked edge-to-edge. My computer bag holds five of them in its main compartment. Amazon sells an assortment, or you can buy individual styles from CraftAmerica.

Inside the storage boxes I keep:

* Retractable Rosewill ethernet connector, about 1.5" x 3".

* Mini-USB to full-USB wire adapter, 6", for uploads from camera to laptop.

* Mini-mouse. I don't like trackpads.

* Spare laptop battery.

* Medications. To save space, I transfer pills into little 3" x 4" zip-lock plastic bags. I peel the prescription labels from pill bottles and stick them to the bags. (but cheaper from eBay).

* One 50mm diameter concave mirror, so that I can examine my own eye if I get a foreign object in it and there's no one else to assist. The concavity allows very close-up focusing.

* Cell phone charger.

* Camera battery charger.

* Earbuds and wire-mounted microphone with USB plug, for Skype calls via laptop. Especially useful when traveling internationally.

* Miniature 3-foot measuring tape in 1" x 1.5" enclosure.

* Plastic lightweight miniature camera tripod, folds to 1.5" x 6" x 0.6", so that I can take time exposures almost anywhere.

* SD data card reader with USB connector. Just in case image transfer from camera to computer fails.

* Miniature LED flashlight.

* Aegis Padlock 500GB external USB drive, with 256-bit hardware encryption. The nice thing about this drive is that you enter your password on a numeric keypad built into the drive. Thus, no software drivers are necessary, and you can plug it into any computer. And if you leave it behind in a motel room, your data are secure (supposedly there is no backdoor to bypass the encryption). Can you plead the 5th Amendment if an inquisitive US immigration agent wants to see what's saved on it? The last I heard, that issue is being litigated in a couple of test cases.

All these items fit inside the five storage boxes. In addition of course the bag has its own set of storage pockets containing pens, blank sheets of paper, two pairs of eyeglasses, paper printout of all addresses and phone numbers, business cards, passport, a printout of all online passwords using a simple cipher that I can decode in my head, and a pocket digital camera, currently a Canon S100. And, of course, there's a computer (Sharp MP30, no longer made unfortunately).

The bag itself is quite small: 12" x 14" x 5". Even when it's fully loaded, I find the weight tolerable.

-- Charles Platt

Extended Warranty Evaluation

The sales pitch for an extended warranty is simple: pay some extra money now to extend the manufacture's 90-day warranty another 3 years to save on expensive repairs later. For most appliances an extended warranty is a rip-off. The cost of this insurance rarely pays for itself. Either the device keeps working till just after the warranty period, or the cost of the warranty extension exceeds the cost of replacing the unit. Either way, the money made by selling uneconomical extended warranties is a major source of profit for retailers. That is why they are selling it: because on average most devices don't break during this period. Therefore, the wisdom of the smart shopper: skip the extended warranty.

There are a few exceptions to this rule. At this particular moment in technology, there are 3 major devices that seem particularly repair-prone and problematic, with frequent failures within their first 3 years, and with high costs of repair. According to a study by the independent Consumer Reports (August 2011), those three are: personal computers, refrigerators and zero-turn-radius riding lawn mowers. And because of their frequent failure across brands the insurance of an extended warranty is justified in their cases.

But not all extended warranties (EW) are the same. You can purchase an EW from the manufacturer, from the retailer selling the device, from a third party, or from your credit card company. And different issuers have different selling points.

In the personal computer realm, the best deal is Apple's. As 25-year Apple fans we automatically figure in the cost of AppleCare's 3-year EW for any device we purchase from them. Sad to say, we frequently need it. Happy to say, their service is great. We take the ailing unit to a local Genius Bar, and they swap out what's broken and make it right. Over the years we'd had screens, keyboards, drives, motherboards, power supply, all repaired for no extra costs over the EW. And that is not to mention the great real-human phone support help for any kind of software related questions.

Refrigerators are a different matter. Almost everyone has one, and newer models (particular those with ice makers) can be very complex. In the past few months, we needed to purchase our first new refrigerator. Even our plumber told us that the EW was worth getting for a refrigerator. But what kind? Sears offered one plan. Home Depot another. Visa, our credit card company offered another if we used their card. Square Trade offered third-party service. With the help of Camille Cloutier, we researched all the plans to see which had the best deal using a new LG refrigerator as a test case. Her research is summed up in this table here.

The short answer is that like many other industries, when you get behind the curtain there are really only a few major players. Most retailers and card companies outsource their extended warranty programs to a few industry giants, who rebrand their service, and then outsource the actual repairs to local companies. But because there are so many brands involved in this transaction it is very hard to assign credit or blame when things don't work out. If you read the feedback in forums on refrigerator repairs most unhappy customers aren't making the distinction between the manufacturer of the appliance, or the retail seller of it, or the company selling the EW, or the actual company supplying the repair technicians who come to your house. Those are four different companies for one experience for the customer.

What I found in warranty repair is that the competency of the local service branch probably plays more of a difference in customer satisfaction than anything else, but was the least consistent. If the local agency did a poor job fixing a problem, customers would naturally blame LG, or Panasonic, or GE for crappy quality and service. It is hard to judge the service quality in an EW, but it is essentially the same as the quality of a regular warranty repair -- that is dependent on local crews -- and this is important -- who often service all the different manufacturers. The Maytag man is unusual because most of the others repair technicians are contracted out and work on all brands.

So the choice of EW providers comes down to price and plan. All the policies we examined include a "No Lemon" clause -- if three of the same repairs are made in a 12 month period and a fourth becomes necessary, they will replace the unit, and most of them share the same long list of exclusions. Of all the policies, Visa's was the shortest and least specific. Its instructions on claim processing seemed the most lengthy (to report a problem, they mail you a claims form, you get an estimate and return that claim form, once it's approve, the claim can proceed).

Most 4- to 5-year service plans cost about 20% of the purchase price. Except Home Depot; they charge a flat fee of $100 for a 4-year extended contract on refrigerators (on a large one that's only 4%). It begins when the 1-year manufacturer's warranty ends, so I went with them for our extended warranty on a new fridge. I now have 5 years of service for $100, which seems like reasonable insurance.

-- KK

Nissan Thermal Cooker

Ever wish you could whip up a pot of chicken and dumplings, go on your bike ride or canoe paddle or even just hike, and have it piping hot and ready for you when you get back to the car? Ok, more likely it rained or snowed on your ride/paddle/hike and you're shivering and wish you had any hot food back at the car. This is experience speaking.

Nissan, the makers of vacuum mugs to keep your coffee warmer longer, also makes a 4-quart powerless crockpot. No plugs. No heater. It's wonderful.

Here's how it works: pull the inner pot out of the device and put it on the range at home (or the stove at camp). Insert ingredients. Heat 'em up to a boil. Put the inner-lid on, then insert the inner pot into the outer pot. Seal the outer-lid. Put the whole device in your car (or your boat, or your dogsled). Have some fun for 3-6 hours. Open the pots and dish out the steaming food.

Incredibly, the first time this device was debuted in the U.S., it was marketed towards tailgaters and, well, flopped. But I had heard about it, and even though it was unavailable on this continent, managed to have a pot shipped over from Taiwan.

Avid outdoorswoman that I am, I had other uses for this kitchen gadget then side dishes for the football stadium parking lot. One morning, I shucked into my wetsuit and paddled into Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe and back, fighting the chill May wind both ways. After landing the boat, I hopped on my mountain bike and rode the famous Flume trail from the highway up to the snow line. I saw thunderclouds across the mountains and booked down to the car, 2,000 feet below, almost making it before the rain began. I was shivery; just short of hypothermic. I was also happy that before I'd launched the bike, I had the foresight to boil elbow mac, burger, and canned tomatos in the Nissan Thermal Cooker. Hot food = life.

The crock pot has recently come back on the market, and is again being hyped as a tailgater essential. Bah. Tailgaters and church-potluckers aren't going to shell out $149 for a crockpot. People who do endurance races in the northern climates: now there's your target audience. And don't forget that this crockpot is more electricity-efficient than the normal kitchen plug-in models; it takes none once it's hot so it makes a great kitchen addition for the average treehugger.

-- Rita Nygren

Thermos Thermal Cooker
$180

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Thermos

Sample Excerpts:

Simple recipes:
1 lb hamburger, browned
2 cans diced tomato
1 lb of elbow mac
Combine ingredients, bring to boil, seal, wait 3 hours. Serves 2-4 people.

Rice-a-roni (any flavor)
Butter
Canned chicken
Fresh veggies, diced
Prepare rice as directed on box. When you get to the cover and simmer stage, dump in the chicken and veggies, then seal in pot. Cook a little longer then directions call for. Servers 2.

2 cans chicken broth
1 can chicken
2 cups wild rice blend
2 cups Simply Veggies (freeze dried vegetables)
Bay leaf
Salt & pepper
Combine ingredients and boil, leave over heat for 5-10 minutes. Seal in pot. Wait 2-4 hours. Serves 4-8 people.

VW Vagabond

This couple penny-pinched their salaries for several years, bought a VW Van, and drove it around the world (US, South America and Africa). They share what they have learned on one of the most helpful websites I've seen for this sort of thing. I really like their sensibility and advice. Very reasonable and very wise. They also "review" the tools and stuff they found vital in their small traveling home on this page. Click on a tool to see more.

They give good advice about shipping vehicles (very complex) and even saving up enough to make the journey. They have a book, too.

While living in a VW Van for three years, they got the idea that even this lifestyle was too complex so they get simpler for the next stage. They are now bicycling across Asia, another adventure and great idea. They are riding recycled 1980 mountain bikes. As usual they have all kinds of great tool reviews (water filters and the like).

Part of the reason their advice and website is so useful is that they have no sponsors -- a rarity for ambitious trips like this these days. It keeps them honest and useful. Check 'em out.

Sample excerpts:

Rain gear has proven to be pretty
much useless here in Southeast
Asia. To wear even the thinnest,
most breathable layer in this heat
creates a sauna-like effect. We
have taken to simply riding in the
rain... it's refreshing, really! If it
pours too hard to see, then we
pull over in a bus stop and wait
for the drizzle to return.

This is Rich preparing to cycle out of the
Bangkok railway station at 4 a.m. Notice
the reflective vest and reflective tape stuck
all over the bike. Reflective vests are
available from almost any bicycle shop. The
3M tape is the stuff used on highway guard
rails in the U.S. We purchased strips of it on
eBay for a few dollars.

We purchased our down bags at the Veterans
Thrift Store. They are a few years old and
needed a good washing but are as functional
- albeit with less status - than their adventure
store counterparts. Rich paid $10 for his and Amanda's was only
$1.65. We washed them on the delicate
cycle then ran them through the dryer on low
heat for a few cycles. If you put a running
shoe (make sure it's clean) in the dryer with
the bag it will keep the down from clumping.
We hung them on the line for two sunny days
and now they look and smell brand new - or
close enough.

TechShop Membership

TechShop (previously reviewed here) is a member-based workshop. They have one of every tool you could dream of -- laser cutters, plasma torches, computer-control sewing machines, welders, 3D printing machines, you name it -- plus piles of regular tools (drill presses, lathes, oscilloscopes, miter saws etc.), and once you are member and cleared for training, you can use them whenever you want. They have a big open tables, lots of room, and offer classes for various tool craft as well.

TechShop sells day passes, week passes, monthly passes, or yearly membership.

The big update is that they have expanded their locations from their original Silicon Valley station. They are currently in 5 US locations, with 3 more in progress, and are adding more each year.

The idea is brilliant. Why should you purchase, maintain, and upgrade expensive shop tools that you might need only once in a while? It's a whole lot better to join a co-op that buys, houses, and upkeeps the gear. You pay rent to use it -- a price that will be a lot less than the cost of purchase. The downside, of course, is that you need to travel to the TechShop, which can be inconvenient. I've found 3 types of folks using it: 1) Those who have tiny apartments and no tools, or tool space, of their own; this is their workshop. 2) Those who are working on a prototype, or a big art project, for a specific period of time; this is their lab and office. 3) Those who own a decent typical workshop but want occasional access to a laser cutter, or 3D printer; this is their luxury.

Here are some photos I took at the San Francisco location:

A cage of power tools.

Welding machines waiting to be used.

A work table with floating power cord, easily accessible from any side, but not in the way. The lockers are for members use.

A plywood bench made using tools on the premises.

Working at the laser cutter control station.

Kidco PeaPod Plus

The PeaPod is a travel bed for kids. My kids have outgrown it now, but this was the best thing when they were little and we were on the road a lot.

It replaces the traditional travel crib (sometimes called a pack-and-play). We had one of those, and it was huge and heavy. When my daughter was young, I think we flew 14 times her first year of life. The first few times we checked the old travel crib. It was heavy, bulky, and difficult to deal with when we had her as well. Impossible if it was one of us traveling with her.

The PeaPod folds up and is no bigger/heavier than a large diaper bag. It will pack right in with a car seat when traveling by air. When traveling on the road or even just across town, it packs and unpacks easily. It afforded us a much more convenient and easy way to travel with kids. It's usable by one person with no hassle, and the footprint is less than a traditional travel crib. We've even taken it camping and set it up inside our tent.

The whole thing is self-contained like those hoop style sun shades. There's an elastic strap that goes across the diameter of the hoop. When you take the strap off, it pops right open like a self-opening tent because it actually is a self-opening mini tent. It's just as easy to break down. Two-to-three minutes max to put it up and break it down. You can check out this video to see what's involved.

It also comes with a sleeping bag that fits perfectly. Depending on the model, it may come with an inflatable mattress. The lower end ones don't have a mattress (the P201 does). The middle tier come with an inflatable mattress and a manual pump (which is what I use). The higher end units come with a self-inflatable mattress like a Therm-a-rest.

I'm not kidding when I say that it changed the way we travel. I'll even go so far as to say that we made several international trips with small children that made their sleeping arrangements an afterthought rather than a major concern simply because we had a peapod.

I know baby gear isn't a typical cool tool kind of post, but it is pretty cool. Overall, it's just a better solution to the issue of having a safe place for your child to sleep when you're away from home.

-- Chuck Balog

Kidco PeaPod Plus P201
$75

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Kidco

SureFlap Microchip Cat Flap

This is a battery operated cat door that unlocks (going inside) by reading the cat's microchip. Our cat was chipped at our shelter for around $10, but commercial vets are also able to do it for a bit more. No need to worry about lost collar keys, or magnets. Keeps out unprogrammed animals. The door also has the standard four-setting mechanical overide locking feature of: in-out, in only, out only, locked. If your cat is not chipped, you can also use an RFID collar key (not included).

We previously had a magnetically keyed cat door, but you then have the choice of using a safety collar and losing the (not cheap) key every now and then, or using a non-safety collar and risking the cat strangling itself.

Raccoons eventually defeated our magnetically keyed door. They haven't defeated this one (yet), although the mechanical parts of the latching action are similar.

-- Bruce Bowen

SureFlap Microchip Cat Flap
$140

Available from Amazon

Material Libraries

There are thousands of types of materials to make things from. The first impulse for most of us is to use known materials like wood, steel, concrete, and glass. But each of those have hundreds of varieties, each with their own properties. How about metallic ceramics? And every year brand new materials are invented. How can one find out what materials are available?

One way to become familiar with the vast possibilities of materials is to visit a materials library. That's what professional designers and architectures do when embarking on a project. Maybe what they design can be made of some kind of glass? Or super strong plastic? Or bendable wood? Larger design firms have their own material collection, which they use for inspiration, research and for sharing with clients. Below is an unusually large material library at the New York City architecture firm 1100: Architect. Smaller ones can be found at most design firms.

Not everyone has the space or time to build their own. So Material Connexion is a commercial business operating in 8 major design-center cities of the world. For a subscription fee you can use their extensive material library. They add about a dozen new materials per month. A fair number of university art centers also use them to install and manager their collections.

Art, architecture and design centers in colleges and universities have begun creating material libraries that rival the depth and usefulness of book libraries. Notable collections include Harvard's Materials Collection and RISD's Material Resource Center in Providence, RI. At both you can check out a sample to study, just like a book:

To Borrow Items from the Material Resource Center Select items from the shelves and bring them to the checkout desk. Materials circulate for 7 days at a time. Please return materials promptly - an overdue fine of .20 per 5 items will be charged.

The Materials Lab at the University of Texas was the pioneer in creating material libraries several decades ago. Their own library contains 25,000 different types of materials. Even better, the catalog of the Material Lab is openly available online. It's organized by domain and even though you can't touch them, you can learn a lot by browsing and searching. You can quickly see, say, how many different types of concrete blocks are available, or how many types of metallic glass, or plywood laminates.

Chances are that if there is a art/design college near you, they have a material library that you could at least visit. The local art college in my neighborhood is the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I visited their materials library, which is small, but stimulating. Here the librarian oversees the collection. I was free to browse it.

Even better, it is not hard to accumulate your own collection of materials, or even start a shared library with friends and colleagues. It is not just the pieces of stuff that is valuable, but the information about the stuff -- its specs, what it can do, or not do, where it comes from, how to get more of it.

-- KK

Flexible LED Strip Lights

We installed flexible LED light strips in our kitchen for under cabinet and within cabinet lighting. These are very low energy consumption, cool to the touch, and rated to last for 50,000 hours.

The strips are about 1 cm wide and 2 mm thick. The strips come on a spool with a sticky tape side. You press the sticky side to the bottom of the cabinet (or the sides inside) and the strip gives a very diffuse effective and efficient light. They are so thin, you can't really see the light strip itself, only the glow. The strip is a circuit of LEDs in a row. They have marked segments about every 2-3 inches where you can cut them to fit. They typically run off of 12 volts; the transformer can sit i a cabinet, attic, or basement. You can also specific different color temperatures (very warm to very cool). The lights are dimmable.

We used them under our cabinets and inside of one cabinet (picture above).

There are tons of manufacturers peddling flexible LED strips now. You can purchase them in meter strips or on 5 meter reels. Here is one supplier with many products and variations: Superbrightleds.com. I have no experience in using this outfit. It is a new market so quality varies.

We used a local California-based manufacturer, Aion. Their prices are higher than many of the imports (usually from China), but they had a deliverable guarantee of 5 years. Unfortunately they don't deal retail, wholesale only through electricians, who can reliably install it.

If anyone has experience with installing DIY LED strips, please let us know.

And these nifty strips can be used for all kinds of other illumination where flexibility and thinness is desired.

-- KK

Carpenter Pencil and Keson Sharpener

I have been a carpenter for thirty years or so. I started out as a framer on single family homes, where I used the flat carpenter's pencil. Its sturdy lead stood up to marking rough lumber but was a little tricky to sharpen. You want a flat chisel point not a conical point. This is accomplished quickly and easily with an inexpensive Keson pencil sharpener.

My framing days are long gone, thankfully. I have worked in many aspects of the field, from general carpentry to boatbuilding to cabinetmaking and am currently installing interior doors and high-end trim. Through it all I have held on to that flat pencil. It never ceased to amaze me how many employers (and I've been through a few) have told me to lose the flat pencil and get with the program and use a round pencil. To my mind, the only thing a round pencil is good for is taking a lunch order or making out the bill. The point breaks easily when marking wood and is difficult to sharpen unless you have an electric sharpener under your chopbox, which many guys do.

-- Paul Francy

Keson Carpenter Pencil Sharpener
$8

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Keson