This week, We start off Season 5 with a BANG! We’re going to show you what we have planned for over $24,000 worth of tools, Dave finishes the Battle of the Brushless Hammer Drills, Jim pits Ryobi vs SKIL, We look at new tools coming in 2022! THIS is your Power Tool Week In Review.
Season 5 Introduction
Welcome back power tool fans to Season 5 of the Power Tool Week In Review, I’m Rob, and behind me we have 4 new shelves on our set, each one loaded with over $2,000 worth of power tools that we purchased ourselves, from DeWALT, Makita, Milwaukee, and FLEX, and at the end of this month, we’re going to let one of our channel members pick a shelf for themselves, but before I get too deep into that, let’s get to the news,
Man Caver Tools | Failed Hammer Drills
Starting with Dave over at Man Caver Tools, who this week, continued his Battle of the Brushless Hammer Drills, where he tested several popular hammer drills from Milwaukee, Flex, Hilti, DeWALT, Bosch, and several more. This time around forcing these poor drills to bore out what look like ¾ or 1” holes with a huge auger bit. Dave seems to have a bad habit of abusing his power tools, but at least we get to watch. And this time, only 3 brands failed. To find out which ones, head over to Man Caver Tools.
Philly Fixed | Pro Power in Entry-Level Tools
Jim over at Philly Fixed, continues his quest to find pro power in entry-level tools, this time featuring a SKIL PWRCore 20 impact for the first time on his channel and making it hash things out with a Ryobi One plus HP. To test these guys he drives several 8” timber lock lags into lumber, bores out holes with a 1 ¼” auger, and even a ½” wide 12” long LAG into the end grain of a 4×4. Why do these guys seem to hate these tools so much? After testing, Jim notes that based on feel alone, the SKIL was not only more powerful, but also kept vibration down. But the truth is in numbers, which he reveals at the end.
Torque Test Channel | Lumen Testing
The team at Torque Test Channel tends to take a break from torque testing once in a while, and typically bring their obsessive styles of testing to other areas where they think brands might be cheating. That includes the ominous lumens ratings on work lights. This week they brought back out their clever lumen rating rig, and this time put several headlamps to the test, including examples from Milwaukee, Slonik, Petzl, Coast, Matco and my personal choice, nightcore. Now the point of these tests isn’t to determine the brightest, but to compare test results against the claims the marking department puts on the packaging. And yup, there’s some creative advertising going on. They also test runtime, charge time, and fit. And while I’m glad my favorite brand performed well, they eventually concluded that you should just put them all on your head at once, which feels a little excessive to me.
Production Crew Find by Irakly | Miillers Construction
Our Production Crew joins us every Tuesday on a private live stream, and they help us find content for our show. And this week, Irakly found a new channel called Miillers Construction, that’s only a few months old, and shared this detailed review of the FLEX Mud Mixer. Besides reviewing the features, Aaron put the mixer through it’s paces, and made a good case for tossing their Bosch corded model for this new cordless version from FLEX. These guys are actual tradesmen, and so far, their content is far better than their 27 subscribers would suggest. So in the spirit of encouraging good tool reviewers, be sure to go give them a shot at your sub.
Shop Tool Reviews | Ryobi Storage Solutions
Our buddy Tim Johnson over at Shop Tool Reviews is not a man of few words. But you would be forgiven for assuming that not even Tim could talk about Ryobi storage bins for 20 minutes. You’d be wrong of course.
As you can see in the background of any of Tim’s videos, he’s a stickler for organizing his tools. So when Ryobi decided it was going to take on the likes of the Packout series from milwaukee, Tim couldn’t help but check it all out. While he did obtain some of their new wall storage stuff that I’m most excited about, he decided to to focus on the mobile boxes instead. Tim goes over every inch and feature of all three options, and tells us what he likes, and what he doesn’t. If you have yet to give Ryobi a chance at storing your tools, you might watch to check this out.
Mastering Mahem | Kobalt Blower
Our last stop is back with Marius from Mastering Mehem who went shopping for deals again, and this time found this insane Kobalt 40V backpack blower, which produces a serious 690CFM at 135 MPH. Besides delivering on all that power, Marius seemed really happy with the build quality, and the comfortable ergonomics of this backpack blower. And at 20lbs, you could wear it for a really long time. Assuming of course you have the kobalt batteries to keep it running. He was able to drain two 4ah 40v batteries in 30 to 45 minutes. Of course none of this would matter to Marius if he didn’t get a good deal. Fortunately he found this $299 backpack blower for only $122 on clearance at Lowes. Of course as with anything on clearance at Lowes, your local results may vary. Happy hunting.
Tool Talk | What’s Coming in 2022?
Let’s talk NEW tools. So it’s 2022. So far, we’ve set new illness records in all 50 states. Politicians have successfully convinced us that anyone with a different idea than ours, is the devil. Extreme weather is now called, Weather. And Betty White, God rest her soul, isn’t here to fix any of it. But if there’s one thing we can stll look forward to this year, it’s new tools. And while we don’t know exactly what’s ahead of us, thanks to a few leaks, we have a clue or two to get excited about. Now EGO decided to simply announce all of their 2022 tools upfront. That includes a new 16” chainsaw, a 16in string trimmer with Line IQ Technology that automatically winds your line, and then auto feeds it as you need it. They also announced a new 52” version of their popular Z6 with 25 hp, and includes 6 12AH batteries, that can tackle up to 4 acres on a single charge. They also announced this crazy new led work light, a huge misting fan, updated select cut mower, and my personal favorite, an all-new 765CFM blower. That number isn’t a joke. 26 newtons of power my dudes, and up to 200 mph. I asked their product manager about those ridiculous numbers. I wanted to know how much higher could they go and he laughed, and said “We’re just about to the point where you can’t hold it in your hand anymore. So I figure a couple of these strapped to the front of my Z6, and I have a riding leaf blower that I may not need, but one I deserve.
Of course we can expect a ton of new tools from other brands as well. We’ve all been asking for a mower and tracksaw from Milwaukee for 300 years. And while they admitted to a mower, by distributing this singular photo, they won’t own up to a track saw yet, despite a convincing placeholder accidentally showing up on Home Depot’s site. Flex promised us that the next phase of 24V pro killers were right around the corner, and we’re hearing recently, that they have more than just new power tools planned. There are other brands that have shared some pretty amazing new tool news with us, but we can’t yet tell you about it just yet. But trust me, 2022 is going to be the year of the power tools, and if we all focus on that, maybe we’ll miss all the things that will make this year terrible. Let me know in the comments below what tools you’re going to be looking for this year.
Massive Monthly Giveaway | Production Crew
And that brings us to the $8,000 worth of brand new, unboxed, power tools on the shelves behind me.
Here at Belts And Boxes, we have a Youtube Member program called Production Crew. These guys and gals are die-hard tool fans, and they join us every Tuesday for a private live stream, where they get to help us choose which videos and content we’ll feature each week on our show.
They also help support our channel, get unique promotional deals from Ohio Power Tool, and this month… one of them is going to get to choose one of these 4 shelves, for themselves. We’re holding a private giveaway to thank our members, for being a contributing part of our power tool community, and perpetuating the generous and inclusive attitude we value here at Belts And Boxes.
To qualify for our January giveaway, you had to have been a member, on December 31st. That leaves us with just 39 people. For $2,000 worth of tools, those are some pretty ridiculous odds. We’re able to do this with the help of Spyder. We asked them to sponsor our Production Crew, because if we’re going to give away the very best pro tools, they’re going to need the very best pro blades and bits to use them.
Each week in January, I’m going to show you what’s on one of the shelves, starting with this one. This is the DeWALT shelf. And the absolute gem of this group, is my all-time favorite saw, the DeWALT Flexvolt 60V Max, Brushless 9” Cut Off Saw. But even with this $800 kit, there was enough cash to buy the 20V Max Combo Kit with the 999 20v Max ½” Hammer Drill with Flexvolt Advantage, and 887 20V Max XR Impact which were $399. We’re also including the 20V Max 3000 lumen Tripod light for $229, the FLEXVOLT 60V Max Reciprocating Saw for $229, The 20V Max 7 ¼” Circular Saw with Flexvolt Advantage, and finally, the 20V Max XR Barrel Grip Jig Saw. Blessed be. That brings the DeWALT shelf total to $2,054. But of course, what’s the point in having pro level tools if you don’t have pro level accessories. Fortunately Spyder is providing the blades and bits these power tools need. Including their framing blade, an insane 7” diamond edge cutoff wheel you can use with the circular saw, a jigsaw blade kit that includes their double sided blades which puts the blessed in your barrel grip, their 3×3 double sided recip blades, and of course their legendary Mach Blue bit set, bringing this shelf’s total to a respectable $2,173.
We have 3 more shelves to show you, featuring Makita, FLEX, and Milwaukee tools. We’ll reveal each one throughout January, and then at the end of the month, we’ll announce our winner, and let them pick which shelf they’d like to take home. Maybe we should do that live.. Of course, that would leave us with an empty shelf, and we can’t have that. So were working on having someone special decide what tools will fill the next shelf. So stay tuned for that.
But giving stacks of new tools to our members is only the first step. As a community, we’re going to be giving away $1000 worth of tools to young apprentices and students who could use a helping hand to get started in the trades. Thanks to our members, we’ll be literally building a bigger community of tradespeople together.
We’re going to be doing this thanks to the contributions from our members, and a generous donation from our show benefactor, Mr. Robert Bates. If you’re not familiar with Bob, he’s a power tool fan, and a regular among live streams in the power tool scene. Bob wants more people to love tools, and see more young people choose the trades. So he’s going to work with our Production Crew to make that happen.
We’ll have more details on our philanthropic endeavors, in the coming weeks. If you’d like to be like Bob, you should consider joining the Production Crew. There’s now a more affordable level as well called Shop Staff, that lets you be a part of all the tool and philanthropic fun, without the responsibility of helping us run the show. To learn more, simply click the “Join” button below this video.
Thanks to our Sponsors FLEX and SPYDER
Be sure to join us next Friday where we’ll show you the tools on our second shelf. I want to thank FLEX for sponsoring this episode, who just announced an extension of their Lifetime warranty on their new line of pro tools, and industry-exclusive on some serious pro level tools. Tool fans, go do something kind for someone else this weekend, and we’ll see you next week. Get better Sarah!