The Smart Home Handyman

I'll be honest, I see ads for brands like Kobalt, Hercules, Flex, Masterforce, and many others.  Generally speaking, I won't buy them. Why not?  Because those are all "house brands".  They are brands that you can only get at one store or franchise.  "Flex" and "Kobalt" belong to Lowes.  "Husky" belongs to Home Depot, "Masterforce" belongs to Menards.  The common trait among them is that you can only get those brands from their respective owner stores. I got burned bad a long time ago by "Craftsman" and Sears.  Not because the "Craftsman" brand was bad.  They were great.  I loved Craftsman and there were Sears stores just about everywhere.  Then Sears started closing stores. Soon, you were lucky if there was only a single Sears store in town or nearby and trying to get "Craftsman" tools, accessories, warranty help, etc.. became a nightmare. Then Sears sold the "Craftsman" brand and it went

Want to go to shop class?  Learn about tools, how to use them and how to build and fix things yourself?  Here's an opportunity to do that.  Welcome to the DIYGuy Video Shop Class. I've been a handyman, building and fixing things since about 1987.  Earlier, if you count all the time spent helping family work on house repair and countless other projects since I was a kid. I went to the local community college and studied general construction, tools, blueprint drafting and reading, basically, I can (and have) built whole houses and fixed just about every part of a house since then. I've also been an instructor and trainer of some kind for the last 20 years.  I've trained truck drivers, beekeepers, wood crafters, and more over that time.  During that time, with only the exception of truck drivers, I've observed a frustration in many people in lacking tool using skills and an interest by them to be more self sufficient and capable of d

One of my biggest pet peeves is this ridiculous habit so many reviewers have of trying to rate a tool's usability by skill level or user job type. Far too often, reviewers use tags like "pro", "prosumer", "DIY", or "Home".  to poorly communicate a tool's use potential.  It's a poor standard and it sets up too many discussions for arguing about a given user's abilities rather than the tool's usability. The reason they use tags at all is to try to get across how durable and how much power a given tool has.  The more durable and powerful, the higher it ranks with "Pro" as the highest ranking. But to be honest, that's a very poor way to communicate that information about a tool.  It presumes that a tradesperson or someone employed in a full time construction type job has the demand for most durability and power.  That's wrong on at least two counts. First, a tool has more to consider than just durability and maxi

Non-power tools are just as important to me as power tools.  Maybe even more sometimes. Using a drill or a saw or working on fasteners with anything from a hammer to glue gun, to a rivet gun all saves a lot of wear and tear on my body by reducing or eliminating repetitive work.  Having to do any of these things working on a floor, bent or hunched over kills your back and your knees.  Not only that but it often means your working with a reduced or partially blocked view of what you're working on. Sawhorses, tables, stands and other such tools bring the work off the ground or low area and puts it somewhere you can work better and see what you're doing better. Combine those things with clamps, braces, vises and other "third hand" types of tools and your work is improved by a lot. Sometimes you have to go where the work is, and that means on the floor, the ground, or in a low position that means you have to lean or hunch ove