Makita Miter Saw with Light AND Laser

For a long time now, Makita has assumed that you'd either want a miter saw with a floodlight or with a laser. Well, that's changed. You can now buy one with both.

Floodlight

When you're cutting pretty much anything, the best way to make sure you cut on the line you draw is to ensure you can see the line. With a flexible floodlight added on to a standard miter saw, you can much easier hit the line every time. I know I usually end up with at least a flashlight pointing towards the material on my 18V miter saw when I'm using it indoors, so the floodlight seems like a great idea.

Laser

By having a laser on the saw, you can see where the blade is going to hit the material. This should lead to more accurate cuts, but if you can't see your mark well it won't help. To me, this has really made the floodlight necessary - maybe even more so than just poor lighting conditions since the laser line stands out so well when compared to the rest of your material.

Best of both

With the new Makita LS1214LF, you get the best of both - the light AND the laser. With the pricetag where it's at, it won't be for the average homeowner. Any serious professional should at least take a look at it, though. It's still got the dual linear ball bearings and other features that make the LS1214 a great saw, but the light and laser make it just that much sweeter.

Custom Band Saw Blades

We sell our fair share of bandsaw blades. There are a ton of options out there. And knowing that a cheaply made band saw blade can beak or prematurely fail, we sell quality blades. But what if we don't have the right size for the bandsaw, or if you want to know more about the quality of the blade than what one of our manufacturers provides?

Custom Blades

Custom blades can be made from higher quality tool steel producing the longer lasting blades. Custom blades are made to your specifications and are a good way to buy blades for hard-to-find sizes and hard-to-find widths.


Research the Warranty

When choosing a company to buy blades from, check the warranty. The most likely place for a custom blade to fail is in the weld, so be sure that there is a good warranty. Reputable manufactures will guarantee the weld for the life of the blade and will reweld or replace the blade for free if it fails.

Research Their Welder

You'll also want to check the type of welder used on the blades. Low quality welders often produce misaligned and low quality welds. I have found that some vendors, such as bandsaw-blades.com, use factory grade welders that produce high quality and high precision welds. You can also find tips on choosing the right blade and getting the most life out of the blade at their site here.

Check ToolBarn.com First

Ideally, I'd like for one of the blades we carry to be the perfect size for the bandsaw you have. But if you don't have a "Normal" sized need, you'll have to go with custom. Just make sure to do your homework on the company doing the work.

Interesting Battery Insides - V28, Litheon and LXT

As I'm talking to our vendors today at our annual tent event, I found some of the information that they're sharing on the insides of their batteries to be quite fascinating. So here's the breakdown of what's different between Milwaukee V28, Bosch Litheon and Makita LXT.

Milwaukee V28

V28 is made up of multiple 4V cells. They're all wired in series and are 3Ah cells, making for 28V 3Ah batteries. The simple diagram looks like below:



Bosch Litheon

Litheon (36V, anyway) is made up of 20 battery cells, each being 3.6V and 1Ah. They basically use two rows of 10, making each battery cell in parallel with another and then in series with 9 other such sets. The result is a 36V, 2.0Ah battery.


Makita LXT

Makita did things similar to Bosch, but they used a different number of cells to achieve 18V instead of 36V.

What's the big deal?

So what's the big deal about having one or two rows? Well, not much with a new battery. However, Lithium depends very much on having the same charge across all cells. If one gets out of whack (temperature can create this problem), then all of the cells may or may not get fully charged or be able to fully drain. Strike against the two rows.

However, suppose you do have a cell go bad prematurely. With the two row setup, you have some level of redundancy, so the battery isn't totally useless. So long as only one of the cells in each parallel configuration ever goes bad, the end result is that you've got a (slightly) usable battery, even with half of the cells going bad. Strike against the single row.

Now, take into account that more Ah = less stable battery architecture and you've got a second strike against the single row because each cell in the dual row design has a lower Ah rating.

Either way, there are issues. When Panasonic releases their Li-Ion, they've got a different monitoring technology at the cell level that they say will be improving upon the power tool Li-Ion industry, so I'll have to add a new diagram at that point. But for now, you've got 6 in one and two half dozens in the other. ;-)

Round two of our server upgrades is done

We've been busy squashing bugs this week since we went through our second round of server updates last weekend. It took longer than expected to move to phase two, as phase one was quite some time ago, but we had a few issues with communication between our different servers to work out. If you happen to spot an error, let us know at the email address the error provides. I think most of them have been sorted out, and performance on ToolBarn.com should be a lot better now.

It seems that many of you have been appreciating the increased performance, as sales have been really good since we made the switch. We appreciate that back and will start making some improvements on the site again shortly, and my blogging schedule will be a little more back to normal.

If you have suggestions for what you'd like me to write on, leave a comment (questions on how things work are usually good). I'll probably do a bit of coverage on our tent event over the next couple of days and ask lots of questions of our vendors. Hopefully I'll get some good info I can share here over the next few weeks. If you have any questions to ask of our vendors, I'll check the comments and my email regularly in between trips to talk with them and get pictures.

Internet Retailer's Internet 500

I just wanted to post a quick note saying thanks to our customers for helping to put us on Internet Retailer's Internet 500. I'd also like to congratulate our other local Omaha based e-commerce leaders Omaha Steaks, Netshops and Oriental Trading Company, as well as our friends from SES at Vintage Tub & Bath and Bare Necessities.

I'm sorry if I missed anyone, but do let me know if you see omissions from the Omaha list. I'd like to properly congratulate them.

Father's Day Approaches

As father's day quickly approaches, remember Dad this year with some great tools. Ok, so not all dads like tools, but many of them do. If the father in your life is into tools, here are a few suggestions.

Shop by Price Range

We've got a list of gift ideas under $10, $10 - $25, $25 - $50, $50 - $100, and from $100 - $200.

Don't Forget the Batteries

Every tool guy needs fresh batteries at times. Batteries can be very expensive, so go with the more economical variety: 2 packs!

DeWALT currently has a 2 pack of 18V Ni-Cad batteries available. They're normally $85 per battery, so this pack is a great deal.

There is also a 2 pack of 18V Ni-Cad Milwaukee batteries available. They're normally $69 per battery, so the savings aren't as great but they're a great deal.

Makita has a couple of two packs.
First, there is the standard 18V Makita Ni-MH battery 2 pack. Normally $88.50 ea, this pack is the lowest priced two pack, making for an exceptional deal.
Secondly. there is a Makita 18V Li-Ion battery 2 pack. Normally $89 each, the two pack is again a great savings over two individual batteries.

We do, of course, offer a ton of other tool batteries as well.