THIS WEEK, A LOT has happened in Power Tools. We have new tool announcements from Milwaukee, RYOBI, and RIDGID, Todd finds the best Cordless Sander, Robillard tests a huge line of circular saws And Hayes Machinery dies…and Rises again as Machinery Nation! THIS is your Power Tool Week In Review!
Welcome back Power Tool Fans, well enough in fact, to find Jay’s head hidden in this episode. If you can do that within the first 60 minutes of our show going live, then email us at [email protected] and you might just win our $50 GC.
Torque Test Channel | High Speed Inside
On to the tool news, this week the incredibly entertaining and educational team from Torque Test Channel THE TTC team is back with another entry in their “for science” series, this time bringing out the high speed camera to give us a detailed look at how the various types of hammers work, in impact wrenches and impact drivers. And yeah, it’s fun, fascinating, and educational. But it’s TTC, so it’s pretty much we’ve grown to expect. In this specific video, there’s a LOT to unpack. There are several different ways that tool designers can approach the need to drive super high torque numbers, so to show them off, they cut open several different tools, and let us watch each one work as intended. There’s a lot to see, and plenty to learn, so we highly suggest you take the time to watch it at Torque Test Channel.
Project Farm | Best Sander
Todd has been busy over at Project Farm, and continues to publish some of the most thorough and easily the best edited tool reviews on Youtube.
This time he takes on cordless sanders including examples from Kobalt, Makita, Bauer, WORX, Milwaukee, Craftsman, Ridgid, black and decker, ryobi, mechanical ants, whatever the heck that is, and my personal favorite, the new barrel grip design from Bosch. AS you’d expect, Todd offers several highly creative testing setups, measuring material removal, dust collection, and even velcro strength, because why not? It’s all presented in a perfectly organized quickly explained format, with easy to read charts, and absolutely zero wasted time. Take note guys. He’s not getting 100s of thousands of views because he’s cute. For the full review head over to Project Farm.
Tool Box Buzz | Circular Saw Head 2 Head
Speaking of spectacular head 2 heads, the team at Tool Box Buzz continued their spring circular saw series, this time taking on 6 ½” Circular saws.
As Rob points out, 6 ½” or Trim Circular saws may be small, but they’re very valuable tools for a large range of jobs. And the TBB team set out to find the best one on the market, including examples from Bosch, DeWALT, Makita, Metabo, Metabo HPT, Milwaukee and RIDGID. They used custom rigs and carefully organized tests to measure Accuracy, performance, features, even weight and noise. And of course, you can’t compare a range of tools this wide, without discussing price and overall value. Once again, I was disappointed not to see a contender from FLEX, but Rob addresses that very issue at the beginning of the test. To find out who comes out on top, head over to Tool Box Buzz.
Tools & Stuff | Makita 40V 8AH Battery
You know how some of these high amp hour batteries are starting to make tools look silly? Well until now, Makita has kept their batteries to fairly reasonable sizes, but leaving those of us hungry for more amp hours, left in the cold. But that ends today.
THAT is the all new 8ah Makita XGT battery. I know what you’re thinking, sure we’ve seen 12ah batteries from Milwaukee and a ridiculous 15ah battery from DeWALT. But boys… this is a 40V battery. That means it has the same capacity as a 16ah 18v battery. Yeah. That’s why it’s so freak’n big. So when our buddy Tools from Tools & Stuff got a hold of one, he did what we all would do, and put it on the smallest tool he could find. An XGT impact. And I don’t want to spoil it for you, but it’ll run that impact like… twice as long as the 4ah. I’m a mathemagician. This monster has 20 cells inside just like Makita’s previous 5ah beast, but the 5ah has 18650 cells, while this new 8ah has a full case of 21700s. Chefs kiss. To test it he first spent 1 hour and 17 minutes charging it to full, and then a tight 16 minutes to empty it using makitas XGT blower. Obviously the battery isn’t intended for your tiny impact, it’s meant for Makita’s larger XGT tools, several of which Tools tests them on. You can see just how big it is, at Tools & Stuff.
Shop Tool Reviews | Ryobi One+ HP 10″ Miter Saw
Just in case you’ve been living under a rock… and unconscious, Ryobi has been slapping an HP on the side of a select few ONE plus tools, and telling us to use them on the job site. And this week, Tim Johnson got a hold of the most compelling case yet, the all new Ryobi Miter Saw.
THAT is the Ryobi Brushless ONE+ HP 10in sliding compound miter saw, and should it be on the jobsite? Tim thinks so, thanks to it’s huge capacity, making quick work of 2x12s, and even cutting miters in 2×8 lumber. It boasts 4100 rpm, 47 degree miter left and right, and 0 to 45 degree bevels. But of course the biggest news is big power available on a battery platform, which Ryobi says will give us up to 550 cuts per charge, which isn’t bad at all. After using it for a while, and spending plenty of time truing up the fence, Tim feels like this saw is going to do well on the jobsite, but it’s not for everyone. To find out if it’s meant for you, watch the full review head over to Shop Tool Reviews.
Man Caver Tools
Dave over at Man Caver Tools decided to take apart his broken Milwaukee this week, to see if he could fix it.
Spoiler alert, he can’t. But what he does do, is give us an entertaining look at the inside of the Milwaukee, and looks good doing it, thanks to his new Belts And Boxes, Blessed Be the Barrel grip mug. That was the laziest plug ever, for our AMAZING new merch store, featuring that mug, tshirts and more. Check it out at shop.beltsandboxes.com.
Pro Tool Reviews
Before we go, big congrats to Pro Tool Reviews who hit 100,000 subscribers this week, and VCG who hit the big 500,000. Well done and well deserved guys! If you’re not watching either of those channels, and you love tools, you should hit them up.
We gave away $2,000 worth of EGO tools on Saturday to one of our channel members, Mark M. And that means we have another empty shelf to fill. If you guys have a favorite tradesperson on Youtube, and you’d like to see them choose the tools for our next shelf, let us know in the comments below. And of course no matter what pro tools we add to the shelf, our friends at SPYDER will be there to fill it with pro accessories as well. Now the shelf we just gave away was picked out by our friends at Hayes Machinery, who just announced a channel name change. You can now find them at Machinery Nation right here on Youtube, where they’ll continue to cover power tools, outdoor power equipment, off road rides and much much more. Be sure to get to subscribed to Machinery Nation this week.
I want to thank SKIL and Ohio Power Tool for sponsoring this episode. Guys we couldn’t do it without you. And we’re going to leave you with some videos our friends at Weston Ranch High School Shop Class sent us. Last month, our Production Crew managed to raise and donate over $3,000 worth of tools and accessories for their shop class, but we’re just getting started. There are many more shop classes across the country that need our help. IF you know of a class that could use some new tools, email us at [email protected]. Alright guys, if you can, do something kind for someone else this weekend. And we’ll see you next week.
