Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We only post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted. Tell me what you love.
Heavy-duty makeshift shelter
Camping beside a windblown lake or a tundra riverbank, where the wind never really stops, is hard on tarps: grommets blow out, seams pop, and there never seems to be enough spots on the tarp to attach a line. Tundra Tarps are terrifically versatile, stout tarps. Instead of grommets the tarp is ringed with 3/4" nylon ribbon with loops sewn in every two feet on the outer edge and interior seams. The sil-nylon material is stitched together using a single needle lockstitch with double stitched lapped ends -- in other words, the cloth will fail long before the seams. The most delightfully ingenious innovation is a central "quad loop" that captures the end of a pole, staff, stick or paddle and hold it firmly in place so that when the wind lifts, the center support does not fall out.
After three years of canoeing, camping and backpacking with the Tundra, the tarp is still one of my favorite pieces of gear. I originally purchased one 10' x 16' tarp for a canoe trip to Canada with a crew of nine Boy Scouts. The tarp has sheltered a crew of nine in violent thunderstorms and been a palatial home for one on backpacking trips. There are cheaper options out there, but from my experience, none matches the true versatility and quality of the Tundra Tarp. Weighing a mere 2 pound 10 ounces, it does not add substantially to the load; there is also a 1 pound 10 ounce version available for an additional $80.00. Each tarp ships with 80 feet of polyester cord, a tube of SilNet sealant and a stuff sack. They are sized from 8' x 10' to 15' x 15'.
The company will also sew your choice of colors, either a single color for the whole tarp or multicolored panels. My tarps are multicolored -- orange, red, blue, and yellow -- which makes them very easy to spot when canoing back to camp. I purchased a second tarp this summer when we added a second crew to our annual canoe trip. We're going to get three more to outfit our entire Scout Troop this fall.
-- Clarke Green
Tundra Tarps
$80+
Available from Cooke Custom Sewing
Manufactured by Cooke Custom Sewing
Quad Loop
Log splitter
We heat our home with wood -- four full cords per year -- and began to feel guilty about borrowing our neighbor’s wood splitter for our annual restocking project. We don’t have room to store a full-size splitter, so I researched and found the Brave EZ split log splitter. At about 1/3 the size and 1/4 the weight (140 lbs) of a standard splitter, it doesn’t take up much more space than a lawn mower and can handle all but the most gnarled logs. The splitting wedge is quite narrow, so sometimes it actually cuts through the log rather than splitting it apart. A full cycle is about 18 seconds, so it's not as fast as a full-size splitter (closer to 12 seconds). Since the wedge isn’t as tall as on a full size splitter, I occasionally have to turn the log over to get a complete split. Also, the splitter only takes logs up to 18 inches long, but these are small trade offs for the ease of storage and transport. If someone wants to borrow it or if there is a downed tree that someone is willing to let us have, we can put it in the back of our van and not worry about a tow-behind-splitter bouncing all over the road. The engine, which runs on regular gas, always starts after one or two pulls.
-- John Savereide
E-Z Split
$700
Available from Northern Tool
Or $716 from Amazon
Best cheap nuke-it popcorn maker
This microwave popper is simplicity itself: 1/2 cup of corn, a little oil (or not), and a little time in the microwave yields a healthy, low-cost, low-cal snack you can eat right out of the popper's bowl. Unlike other microwaveable poppers or Tupperware containers, the Nordic Ware's top cover has nifty ridges that facilitate comfortable removal after popping (i.e. when everything is very, very hot). If you don't remove the cover immediately, the popcorn gets too moist. I've tried a variety of devices on my long march to the perfect popper... table-top poppers often made a mess (and big noise) and they're not machine-washable. Some microwave poppers require pads that deteriorate with use and need to be replaced, but are difficult to find. The stove top method, I just could never fully master: burned pans, burned corn, mess to clean. Lastly, those convenient microwavable bags of popcorn: if you eat a lot popcorn, you'll be spending exorbitant sums and -- depending on which brand you purchase -- consuming chemical additives. The Nordic popper does not require oil, if you so chose, so the end-product is essentially the same as an air popper. The Nordic can go in the dishwasher -- or just be wiped clean. Plus, the Nordic is perhaps the least expensive one out there. I paid less than $10 for mine. As of late, we've been producing popcorn five nights a week.
-- Daniel Wilson
Nordic Ware Microwave Corn Popper
$8
Available from Amazon
Manufactured by Nordic Ware
Meditation gauge
This small unit measures the effects of breathing on the parasympathetic system in order to help you feel calm and relaxed. My doctor actually prescribed it for me. The results are subtle but pretty amazing. My major successes have been trying to get to sleep at night. I fire up the small playing-card-pack-size box, which runs on two AAA batteries. Then I insert my finger into the trap door on the top left and begin working to control my breathing pattern. If you haven't used it in a while, it coaxes you to reset date and time. Then it begins with a straight line.... and you begin to breath. What the manual recommends is that you breath in through the nose and then exhale from your mouth. What's different from some other meditation and yoga methods is the StressEraser doesn't want you to count on the inhale, but just to breathe in as deeply as you can. On the exhale you should do it slowly with a count to three, four, or five. The idea is to create a curving graph of regularity that can be worth 1 or 3 points on the device. A meditation session can total as many points as you want. Usually I shoot for 30. It takes a while to get into the rhythm of deeply breathing in and then slowly breathing out with a pause at each end point. It takes me about 15 - 20 minutes to get into the pattern and then complete the breathing session. When I finish, I don't feel much different. But when I climb into bed I find it amazingly easy to fall and stay asleep. It's not cheap, but I paid $200 for a returned model at Sharper Image. My friend gave one to her father, who uses it after watching the evening news. She says it's worked well form him, too.
-- George Brett
StressEraser
$250
Available from Amazon
Manufactured by Helicor, Inc.
Two-color LED torch
This two-color LED light is geared toward us aircraft owners and pilots, but it's also popular with hunters or anyone else working at night or in conditions where they need to preserve night vision. It has 26 LEDs -- 20 are bright white and six are a less-obtrusive red. The push button switch alternates between the colors. I use mine when I'm preflighting the aircraft and also during flights if I need something more powerful than the existing interior lighting inside the plane. I also know some law enforcement people who use them in vehicles at night. The light is sold by the big aviation supply houses like Aircraft Spruce, but also on Amazon. It's very inexpensive, especially considering how effective it is.
-- Robert Cullinan
Pilot's Flashlight
$18
Available from Amazon
DIY, portable cooktop
I've made four kinds of alcohol stoves: the previously-reviewed Pepsi Can Stove, the Turbo Cat II, the Peyo Revolution, and the Super Cat. Of the four stoves I built and tested with a stopwatch (in my 60-degree garage), the Super Cat boiled water the fastest. While one of the others took as long as seven minutes to boil 500ml of water, the Super Cat did it in roughly 4 minutes and 30 seconds, and required no fuel re-fills to do so. Your use may vary, but regardless, the Super Cat called for the least number of materials and tools to make. A lot of tin can stoves require assembly with JB Weld, as well as cutting apart cans with scissors and X-Acto blades, which can lead to getting cut on sharp aluminum. To make the Super Cat, all you need to do is open the can (cat food, hence the name), dump the contents, and drill or punch holes in the prescribed pattern. Since it's just a simple dish of fuel that you light in the middle, the stove does not require a primer dish to pre-heat the stove, nor does it require a pot stand. The stove is actually designed to have the pot sit on top. Without the pot on top, it burns much less efficiently; it needs it there to force the fire out the side holes. In the field -- once on a summer mountaineering trip and twice camping -- it's held up and functioned great. It definitely seems more crush-proof than the other stoves. The only disadvantage: I had to throw out the cat food because I don't have a cat!
-- Steve Schmitt
Super Cat Alcohol Stove
Related items previously reviewed on Cool Tools:
Sierra Stove
Wall Tent Stoves
JetBoil
On-demand fabric printing
I am an architect and have been working with programs like Photoshop for years, but Spoonflower really opened up a new world for me: fabric design. It's a service that let's you upload an image to a web site and the company prints the design as a pattern on 100% cotton fabric. Their customer service is great, and I think the fabric is reasonably-priced: it costs $18/yard, not counting shipping, and an individual 8x8-inch swatch is $5. The site is still in beta, so I had to request an invite to use Spoonflower, but a week after contacting them I was experimenting with patterns and ordering fabric.
So far, I've placed three orders with three different designs (3x3 yards worth) at $ 66 per order, shipping included. The trickiest part was preparing the image file so the pattern matches up. I used the "define pattern" command in Photoshop to test my image files before I uploaded them. I defined the image size (150 dpi), set colors to LAB color space and saved the files in TIF format. After I uploaded them to the Spoonflower site, they were automatically tiled to fill the desired fabric size. Then I specified the shipping address, paid using my credit card and that's it! The turnaround was reasonably quick: my fabric arrived in a month (I live in Switzerland). I made a skirt with the fabric from my first order -- a present for my Mom (pic below).
A couple caveats: I have noticed some distortion after washing the fabric and there was a little color shifting from my original designs. Still, the color shifting and fabric distortion really are minor. Overall, I'm happy with the color accuracy and I've been very satisfied with my orders. I have been having a lot of fun with Spoonflower and will likely place my fourth order very soon. I am even considering setting up an Etsy shop to sell some of my fabrics.
-- Isabella Kuntz
Spoonflower
Beta invitation request
Skirt:
Pattern:
NOTE: definitely check out this blogger's enlightening side-by-side close-ups of fabric printed from her artwork. One of her conclusions: "strong graphic lines turn out better than images with subtle shading." Also, check the Spoonflower pool on flickr for more fabric samples, including this skirt. --sl
Related items previously reviewed on Cool Tools:
World Textiles
Books on Demand
Brother Sewing Machine
Weighs big packages & food
I have been considering buying a kitchen scale for quite a while, but was often underwhelmed with what was out there. Unlike a garden-variety kitchen scale, which typically weighs up to only four pounds, the Ultraship can handle up to 55 pounds. It reads in ounces, pounds, grams or kilos, so it's perfect for the kitchen, but can also be used for shipping packages and mail. Heck, you could even weigh a small child on it. Also, it features a just plain brilliant design:i f you are weighing a really big monster package that blocks the display, you can detach it! The entire face of the unit can be unclipped and pulled away from the scale with a 5-foot-long extension cord.
When I compared the Ultraship to a laboratory-grade scale used at my company, this one went gram for gram with the lab scale. Within the 0-2 pound range, it is actually accurate to essentially 0.035 ounces as opposed to the 0.1 ounces in the specification. If you take baking seriously, this is the only way to go. I fish quite a bit, so it's nice to be able to weight those 30-pound striped bass. From 2-55 pounds, the scale is accurate to within 0.5 ounces. While my initial motivation was for the kitchen, I have also been using it for boxes and packages.
-- Aram Salzman
Ultraship Digital Shipping Postal Kitchen Scale
$35
Available from Amazon
Manufactured by My Weigh
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