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Hand Tool Reviews & Buying Guides

Hand tools make up a large portion of the equipment we carry every day. Pro Tool reviews pays close attention to recent innovations. Our hand tool reviews include knives & cutting tools, wrenches, chisels, fastening tools, hammers, and more. These hand tools covers the gamut from one end of the industry to another. Possibly our favorite series is our best framing hammer review. In that head-to-head review we compared nine popular models. This type of comparison isn’t always possible, but we do test out these tools on the jobsite. Hand Tool Reviews for the Pro Tradesman This is also where you’ll find popular lighting products and even folding knives from Kershaw, CRKT, and Zero Tolerance. We try to review as many of these types of tools as possible. This helps us remain a leader in reporting industry trends. This is particularly important when manufacturers add new features or make tweaks to their products. Sometimes they revamp an entire line. Other times they include something that only slightly improves a hand tool over a previous model. It all adds up.

Dow Great Stuff PRO 15 Gun Review
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Dow Great Stuff PRO 15 Gun Review

by Clint DeBoer

The Pro 15 is Dow’s answer to dispensing its Great Stuff Pro expanding foam consistently and easily. It’s a one-handed tool that allows the PRO cans to fasten securely to the top and dispense a bead of expanding foam anywhere from 1/8″ to 3″ in thickness. If you do a lot of construction work, or you are in the specialty trades like plumbing, electrical or weatherization, you’re going to want a tool like this to simplify what can be a very tedious and time-intensive task. Once you use a dispensing gun, you won’t want to go back to manual cans. Add to that the fact that Dow’s Great Stuff Gun can help you to use your cans longer and reduce waste and it just might save you money over the long haul.

Kershaw Blur Folding Knife 1670BLKST Features
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Kershaw Blur Folding Knife 1670BLKST Review

by Thomas Gaige

The Kershaw Blur Folding Knife 1670BLKST comes in black with a partially serrated modified drop point blade, super grip handles and the proven SpeedSafe assisted-opening system. With the knife in hand, one of the first things that will jump out at you is how much grip that the handle materials offer. The sides of the aluminum handles have textured rubber inserts that make it virtually slip-resistant, even with greasy or wet hands. With just a little bit of thumb pressure against the thumb studs located towards the back of the blade, the blade swings and locks open with an authoritative thwack sound. The liner lock keeps the blade securely open until you press it sideways to release the blade. All in all this knife is packed with practical features that make it great for every day carry.

CAMO Marksman Pro Hidden Deck Fastener System Review
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CAMO Marksman Pro Hidden Deck Fastener System Review

by Clint DeBoer

We’re not easily impressed with hidden decking systems. While they offer a really excellent finished product, many of the systems require clips and extra work that causes the job to take longer, involve more training and generally increase your costs to deliver the finished product. With the CAMO Hidden Deck Fastening System, however, our concept of what was possible with hidden deck fastening systems was redefined. The CAMO system, which uses a Marksman or Marksman Pro installation tool, eliminates the need for clips and routing or cutting the edges of the board, and simplifies the method of deck board installation. In a nutshell, they devised a method to fasten the boards by driving screws at an angle along the board’s edge – directly into the joist. In this way, the boards are secured and the entire process is simplified. In short – it’s fast, and it’s impressive.

Bosch Thin Wall Metal Hole Saws
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Bosch Thin-Wall Metal Hole Saws Review

by Thomas Gaige

Using products like the Bosch Thin Wall Metal Hole Saw are probably the easiest way to make clean holes in sheet metal. We recently tried the Bosch HTW1 1″ Thin Metal Hole Saw on an aluminum gutter project and found it made our task of installing the down spout connection to the gutter almost effortless. Now this is not just a regular hole saw but one that is optimized to cut metal. It has a built-in spring ejector for the plug and has a 1/4″ hex shank that will fit into your impact driver. Probably the handiest feature is the shoulder that is built into the top of the bit that acts as a stop to keep the hole saw from going completely though your workpiece. The logic for this is that if you have to add a hole to an electrical panel, you can drill into the side of it without fear of the hole saw blasting though the steel wall and into the wires inside.

Johnson 25' PlanReader Architect Series Power Tape Review
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Johnson 25′ PlanReader Architect Series Power Tape Review

by Thomas Gaige

Oftentimes, when out in the field, it can be difficult to measure plans to verify dimensions. With the new Johnson 1819-0025 25′ PlanReader Architect Series Power Tape, you have both 1/8″ and 1/4″ architectural scales built right into the bottom of the tape. With larger, easy to see numbers on the top side of the tape, you can do your regular measuring and layout work. When you need to go back to the drawing board to check some dimensions or verify the size of something on the plans, just flip the tape over and you have the two most common architectural scales at your fingertips.

Johnson Level 40-6616 Tiling and Flooring Laser Level Review
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Johnson Level 40-6616 Tiling and Flooring Laser Level Review

by Thomas Gaige

The Johnson Level 40-6616 Tiling and Flooring Laser Level makes doing right angle flooring layouts simpler and is a good tool to use along the way to check to make sure things stay in line. For a reasonable price, the DIY’er has a tool that can make their tile projects have that professional appearance. Everyone knows that in tile work, it is all about straight lines, perfect corners and a layout that matches the room. Johnson’s new Flooring Laser Level has a simple design, good accuracy, and a reasonable price that will bring a level of quality to your project, even if you are going to do a single floor. With laser guidance within reach, you can ensure that your flooring project will come out the way you dreamed it would.

Kobalt 63 Piece Mechanics Tool Set Review
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Kobalt 63 Piece Mechanics Tool Set Review

by Thomas Gaige

With the recent reintroduction of the Kobalt mechanics tools, we have been eager to put our hands on a set to see what they are all about. The Kobalt 63 Piece Mechanics Tool Set (0338513) that we got in includes some of the most common 1/4″ and 3/8″ drive Metric and SAE sizes sockets that you will need. Things like a 72 tooth ratchet and fully polished chrome plating on all the tools comes standard along with laser etching and red/blue colored markings for easy identification of SAE (standard) and MM (metric) sizes. With an ever-growing line of mechanics tools, it looks like Kobalt is not just about quality, but also variety. They want to make sure that they have what you need to do your projects – and they enlisted the help of Hendrick Motorsports to make sure they did it right this time.

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