The Best New Tool from the National Hardware Show 2024

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[00:00:13] Tom Scott: to, uh, lawn equipment, um, a lot of the dealers that have purchased our entire system, service chainsaws and outdoor lawn. Lawn equipment Yeah. Have big brands that you've heard of.

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[00:00:40] Eric Goranson: not going to hurt that aluminum shaft on it.

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[00:00:44] Tom Scott: yeah. How many times have you had a string trimmer trying to, you're right in the middle of your job and you've got to change the line or put new line in and you're holding it between your legs. You're trying to balance it on the tailgate of your truck.

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[00:00:55] Eric Goranson: every time when it

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[00:00:58] Eric Goranson: there is a lot to [00:01:00] know, but we've got you covered. This is our round. Welcome to the round the house show. This is where we hope you get the most out of your home through information and education. Thanks for joining us today.

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[00:01:32] Eric Goranson: Thanks for coming on today, brother. Thank you, Eric.

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[00:01:38] Eric Goranson: far. Man, this has been a lot of fun. And you guys came out with, I love companies that take something that's in a shop and go, this has not been improved for a hundred years, and then you make something absolutely spectacular.

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[00:02:12] Tom Scott: And we said, why can't we design something that allows you to put the work where you need it, where it's in the optimal position for whatever you're trying to do.

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[00:02:26] Eric Goranson: This is really designed to put anything that your workbench can

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[00:02:43] Tom Scott: Same on a chainsaw. I can put it wherever I want. And depending on what I'm trying to do.

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[00:03:04] Eric Goranson: And why in 2024 is something this cool finally hitting the workbench. Yeah. Yeah,

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[00:03:24] Tom Scott: And we have, like you said, a whole system of products that center around the vice that make work easier.

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[00:03:35] Tom Scott: IQ vice system and it starts with a vice. With the vise, we have five different jaws that you can put on for task specific projects.

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[00:03:57] Eric Goranson: you're going to ruin the vice business for all [00:04:00] the tape manufacturers out there, for all the people that have been selling rolls and rolls of tape, trying to get people to quit using their regular bench vice to ruin the finish and the wood or anything else they're working on.

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[00:04:12] Tom Scott: the bare vice has jaws that are metal that you can use without any of the different accessories that we have. And, but almost all of the other options keep from marring the, the, whatever material you're working on. So I can put it on a bike frame and not scratch it.

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[00:04:30] Eric Goranson: Wow. Yeah. And that's the cool thing with this is you can go through and it doesn't matter if you're working on lawn equipment or if you're working on a fine wood working project, you guys have the system to work with

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[00:04:39] Tom Scott: Even things that you would never think about putting in a vise.

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[00:05:03] Tom Scott: And I'm not going to scratch it. I'm not going to hurt that investment, so I trust it.

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[00:05:17] Eric Goranson: It makes a lot of sense. And when you see it, you look at it and go, wow. Okay. It's black, it's orange. It's cool. This is built. Chest

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[00:05:37] Tom Scott: With a vice that articulates and rotates 360 degrees. And that's just unheard of.

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[00:05:49] Tom Scott: with. Yeah, I tested it out. I put a board in the vice, folded it flat down and jumped on it and we videotaped it and the vice will rip out of the bench before you [00:06:00] say, before

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[00:06:01] Eric Goranson: I was going to say, yeah, you're going to either rip the bench out of the wall, knock the bench over or just completely destroyed the top before you do that. Yeah. You're not the weak point

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[00:06:10] Eric Goranson: either. So no, neither one of us are, but still it's one of those things that it's, and then you put the leverage on that on top of it.

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[00:06:32] Eric Goranson: Yep. And you're like, Should have been having an advice and it's just a safer work environment when you couldn't tie down the piece you're working on. Yeah,

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[00:07:01] Tom Scott: We're getting a little older. Might not have our glasses on all the time. And a cell phone holder. And that's even, that's either for, if you really know what you're doing, you're taking a video so you can send it to your friends. If you don't know what you're doing, you're looking at a video on YouTube,

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[00:07:14] Eric Goranson: Dude, that is so smart because how many people out there, and I even do this now, I'll get a new product that shows up at my house that I've never played with before. I'll have this pack of instructions and I'm sitting there looking at it going. Do I want to read through 12 pages of fine print or do I just want to watch the video they made for it?

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[00:07:31] Tom Scott: Every one of our products that we sell, whether it's the jaws or the mounts for the IQ Connect system or the vice, has a QR code on it. You can just scan it and watch the video and figure out how to use it.

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[00:07:45] Eric Goranson: Oh yeah. Trying to read it. You want to play with it, right? You want to do whatever you're working with and it's smart. And of course, for the creators out there, you got a cell phone holder as well. So if you want to be recording what you're doing, you could be doing that too. Yeah.

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[00:07:59] Tom Scott: [00:08:00] You can put on any of your shop tools. You can take it and put it on your refrigerator. If you want, you can put it under a car hood, but it'll hold that light or the magnifying glass, wherever you need it. You don't, if another option is a clamp mount, you can clamp to the edge of the table so you can work in the kit.

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[00:08:17] Eric Goranson: So, yeah, you guys have got this dialed in. Now, where do you find this stuff out? If somebody was sitting there wanting to buy one of these,

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[00:08:28] Tom Scott: We've been to True Value, Ace, Do It Best, and Orgel Brothers shows. And so lots of those dealers have our products now. Nice. And we also sell on our website at workiqtools. com. And you can find us on Amazon as well. That's

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[00:08:49] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Uh, you can actually, you can get it and get it quick

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[00:08:55] Eric Goranson: there you go. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. This is something that's really cool. And I really like what you guys are, we're doing [00:09:00] this and it's not just a vice. It's

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[00:09:02] Tom Scott: Yep, exactly. Exactly. You're talking about extra set of hands. I live in Minnesota. I go through two cords of firewood every season and I got tired of buying kindling. So I make my own with the firewood that I've already split and I just mount my axe. Then I sharpened on the vice, by the way, at the perfect angle, upside down in the vice, and I hit it with a two and a half pound hammer and split logs in the, in the Kimlin.

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[00:09:31] Eric Goranson: many times we've all done that stuff? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I tell you what, I've also tried out those, those, they make those, uh, firewood splitters, but they never work, right? Yeah. Oh yeah.

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[00:09:51] Tom Scott: is smart. And it answers the question of, can you pound on the device?

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[00:10:01] Eric Goranson: So dude, that is awesome. That's a great way to do it. Cause if you were to try to do that in your normal vice, what's the first thing he does, the handle comes down on the ax and now it's at a 45 degree angle, hit the top of your workbench.

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[00:10:25] Tom Scott: And it's, so it's based, the reason it does this is because it's on a ball and socket.

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[00:10:59] Tom Scott: Yeah. So [00:11:00] it's, it's

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[00:11:14] Eric Goranson: It seems at the wrong, wrong angle in the vice. Exactly.

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[00:11:33] Tom Scott: See, that makes it so much easier to take it out of the

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[00:11:45] Tom Scott: a couple of projects with a kitchen knives, chef's knives, and I made one out of rosewood handle, one out of micarta.

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[00:12:10] Eric Goranson: So there's really no limitations to this other than your workbench then. You need to have a strong workbench if you're going to be reefing on

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[00:12:29] Tom Scott: We've seen people use C clamps, but the most sturdy way to do it is to lag bolts through your bench. Yeah, lag bolts

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[00:12:36] Tom Scott: But back to the lawn equipment, um. A lot of the dealers that have purchased our entire system service as chainsaws and outdoor lawn. Lawn equipment.

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[00:13:02] Eric Goranson: could call.

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[00:13:08] Tom Scott: yeah. How many times have you had a string trimmer trying to, you're right in the middle of your job and you got to change the line or put new line in and you're holding it between your legs.

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[00:13:18] Eric Goranson: time. Yeah. Every time I've done that. And. That's a game changer just right there. Cause you're doing this, it's moving around. You're trying to fish the line through and it's twisting and moving around.

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[00:13:34] Eric Goranson: That is good. Yeah, that is good. And so, yeah, you think about that, even if you're doing plumbing work, so you can put a pipe in there like anything

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[00:13:52] Tom Scott: It really grips it hard. And if you're doing like fitting work and you need extra torque. The base of our ball has [00:14:00] grooves in it. So you can put a pin that locks all the way through the vice, through the base of the ball, and that's when we can get up to 130 foot pounds of torque. Yeah, cause that's just not moving.

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[00:14:19] Eric Goranson: that covered too. So if you're working on mountain up, some, like underneath a pedestal sink, you've got all your pieces that are chrome or brass or whatever that that finishes, you can do that right there.

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[00:14:31] Tom Scott: Every one of our jobs is double sided. So we just talked about the pipe metal on one side, rubber on the other. Several are others are flat rubber on one side, foam on the other for wrapping around odds to shape parts like a spindle or crown molding, but they're all double sided.

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[00:14:51] Eric Goranson: see that, that makes just, that makes it so easy. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't like it finishes the biggest problem to me when you've got something really nice, like [00:15:00] I've got an expensive bike. There's no way without me going out and spending a ton of money on some kind of a special bike shop rack to put that on.

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[00:15:10] Tom Scott: than that. Exactly. They make, there's some great bike racks out there that the bike shops use and a lot of people can buy at home. They, you need to put them out on an open floor space. Yes. Vice mounts right on your bench and gives you the flexibility to spin the bike around, put it up on, on top of the workbench.

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[00:15:32] Eric Goranson: that's the thing. That's the thing. You can be doing anything on it. And I imagine like working on automotive stuff where you're trying to take a pulley off, right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

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[00:15:52] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. You can't use a regular vice for it.

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[00:16:04] Eric Goranson: Nice. And so are you guys continuously just developing more and more little pieces and parts for this system?

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[00:16:21] Tom Scott: it work? No, we're an innovation company. We have a great team of engineers, industrial designers, and.

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[00:16:46] Eric Goranson: So this is just the beginning. Oh yeah. That's exciting. You guys have a killer team over there. You have one of the best looking boosts here in the show. It's colorful. And when you walk past it, you know exactly what that thing is.

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[00:17:04] Tom Scott: We have a two in house studios. We do all our own photography, all our own videos. We have 30 different videos on the product, so you can, you can find a lot of information on us on, on YouTube or on our website. Nice. Great team. Definitely

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[00:17:21] Eric Goranson: Yeah, that'll be a lot of fun. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit more real quick before we go again, make sure people know how to find you. Let's get your name out there again. One more time here. Yes. The last few minutes were

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[00:17:36] Tom Scott: And when I say IQ, just think intelligence, which IQ exactly. We're all about smart tools. Our tagline is engineered to help you work smarter. And you can find us at work IQ tools. com

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[00:17:57] Eric Goranson: It's like one of the, I love watching people walk [00:18:00] past the booth. They're like, what is

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[00:18:14] Tom Scott: And when you find those unique applications, please email us, please send them to us and at info at work, IQ tools. com. And we'll put you on our website. We'll put you in our catalog. We'd love to learn about new applications and how this is helping you. Get your work done,

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[00:18:30] Eric Goranson: And I think this is just one of those things that now everybody's listening. They'll be working out in the shop going, no, I could use it right here. Cause now I need that extra hand and that's cool. So, man, thanks for coming on today. And again, one more time on the website, Tom Scott. Yep. It's a work

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[00:18:45] Tom Scott: com. Tom, thanks for coming on

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[00:19:06] Eric Goranson: Over on the side of your house, there are some things that I want to make sure that you're thinking about as you're building, designing, or renovating that shop space that you have. Now this could be the tiniest spaces and there's things that you need to do. And here are my tips that I think will help it make a safer and more comfortable place to work in.

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[00:19:45] Eric Goranson: But to be honest, if you've got a really dusty spot, maybe you should be thinking about the indoor air quality in there as well, because that is something that can be really bad. And if you're working with chemicals, if you're working with sawdust, This thing, that can really [00:20:00] lead to health issues. You can become allergic to sawdust.

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[00:20:29] Eric Goranson: This is where you need to really think about how are you going to remove humidity inside of this place? Because let's say it's wintertime and it's 40 degrees outside and you bring in that car and this is your workshop where your wood, your power tools, and everything else is. You pull that car in and it's dripping wet.

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[00:21:05] Eric Goranson: And then. Now you're going to start putting rust on things. You're going to see that wood getting way too humid because it's probably drier because you bought it dry. And more importantly, you will grow mold. So those are the things that I really want you to be careful with there and how to handle that, because that is something that's really going to hurt the indoor air quality and of course, ruin your tools and your projects.

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[00:21:44] Eric Goranson: So you want to make sure that you've got fresh air coming in. And so maybe you need to add a bathroom vent fan in there, a nice hundred CFM unit, maybe if you're doing a lot of projects in there, you need to put in like a something to exchange the air in that space, but the [00:22:00] problem is you need to watch out for if it's.

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[00:22:18] Eric Goranson: And that will give you some dehumidification if you get one that has that ability. So that's not a bad way to go. Now let's talk about chemical storage. And this is a big one right here because this is one of those things that you don't realize if you have a house that is attached to your garage and you're storing your paint cans, your rattle cans, your cleaners, your, all this stuff that is putting off chemicals that will end up inside your home.

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[00:23:01] Eric Goranson: I know you might have a fire door, but that stuff does swap air unless you've done a heck of a job of sealing that up. So you want to make sure and store those outside, not connected to the building that you're living in. And even though they're closed up, they've got snap lids or whatever. That's not perfect.

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[00:23:42] Eric Goranson: They could go bad. So just work on those kind of things. And you might have to come up with a better way to do it, or at least seal it up a little bit better. Come up with some way to keep that in the space without having to have that happen. So that's a big one right there. Now, when it comes to safety, The other thing I want to talk about [00:24:00] before we go out to break here is make sure that you have the right extension cords for the project you're working on.

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[00:24:29] Eric Goranson: I mean that motor on that building that fence and I tell you what, you're going to have a big hot mess because you're going to reduce the life of that saw. Now unless you want to have to go out and buy a new one or explain to your significant other why you burned up the saw or oh my gosh it quit because I want to go get a better one.

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[00:25:04] Eric Goranson: Seems that those things are always on sale and there might be a great time to buy them right there. And that could save you an absolute ton of money because those things are expensive. And as we know, wiring and cable is not getting any cheaper. So. Buy the heavy duty contractor grade, buy them once, and then you'll be good to go.

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[00:25:39] Eric Goranson: We'll talk about that just as soon as around the house returns.[00:26:00]

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[00:26:40] Eric Goranson: Check out what would look great in your home at BaldwinHardware. com Hey guys, welcome back to the around the house show. This is where we help you get the most out of your home through information and education. Thanks for joining us today. If you want to find out more about us, head over to around the house, online.

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[00:27:19] Eric Goranson: If you have that basement workshop, you are putting your home in a precarious position. Because most of the air in your workshop is now going to go up into your home. If you think about it, if you have that unconditioned crawl space, over 60 percent of that air comes up into the home from that crawl space.

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[00:27:54] Eric Goranson: But if you can get outside, get out and work that stuff outside and not store as much of that stuff in the basement, like we were talking [00:28:00] about, it's going to be a lot better off basement workshops are tough. I would go through and put in a, a moisture barrier between that and down there. Make sure you seal that off.

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[00:28:28] Eric Goranson: So you don't have that dusty, smelly, bad stuff that you've been working on all day, hiding up in your house. When you get done with that project, it can be bad enough, but just make sure you're doing it correctly. Before we went on to break, we were talking about power tool battery storage, and this can be a big one.

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[00:29:02] Eric Goranson: All it takes is for that battery to get overheated. Maybe the charger faults out, it overheats that battery, and then you can have a fire. So that can be a big problem. So as far as battery storage, use the charger to charge. And as soon as it's done, remove it from the charger and put it on the rack or the system that you're doing nowadays, most of the power tool companies do have their own rack system, or you can get a metal cabinet so you can buy a fireproof cabin.

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[00:29:45] Eric Goranson: Now, if you've got a battery that looks damaged, maybe a dropped it and it's swollen up or it's having some issues or it's got a fault with it when it goes to charge. Time to take that and recycle it. Take it back to the manufacturer if you can and see if you could, if it's under warranty and [00:30:00] replace it.

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[00:30:19] Eric Goranson: I have only had one fail and it just wouldn't hold a charge. So it's extremely rare to have issues, but last thing we want to do is start a fire by keeping those things around when they're not working correctly. And when you get inside these batteries, it's really interesting. It's not just a bunch of cells like anything else.

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[00:30:59] Eric Goranson: [00:31:00] So these are the things that does. So these are pretty delicate situations inside these batteries when you pull one apart. And I don't recommend pulling them apart because by the time you do, you've wrote it and that's a done battery. Now, the other thing is storage. You don't want to keep these in the 120 degree truck.

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[00:31:35] Eric Goranson: If you have those batteries in a certain bag or a certain case that you have. Bring them inside, take them back outside, keep them as stored as you can. You'll get better life out of them. And if it's really below freezing outside, those batteries are not going to work. If they're super cold, they will, you're just not going to get the life out of them.

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[00:32:09] Eric Goranson: And then when that thing starts to go, put it back in the charger, you'll get one cycle. It's okay to put that battery away and have it be half charged if you have enough batteries, but also it's not going to make the biggest dent in it. If you're like, man, I'm going to use this thing tomorrow. I'm going to make sure everything's topped off.

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[00:32:42] Eric Goranson: These are things that might give you some pushback depending on the company. Now the next thing is to with shop safety like this is coming up with that storage for all your tools and Keeping things organized and that's one of the biggest things you'll be safer You'll know where the tools are and it's something that's always a constant battle.

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[00:33:19] Eric Goranson: And that's a big one right there. And then the last one I really want to talk about, which is an important one is making sure that you keep things sharp. If you are working with circular saws, table saws, any of those kinds of things, Make sure that you have enough of the blades to get the project done.

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[00:33:55] Eric Goranson: But you can buy tool sharpeners for those. I just don't really recommend it. I think that [00:34:00] most of those blades, especially if you're buying good ones, use them till their end and they're done. Now here's a tip though, before we go out here in a minute that I want to make sure that you know about. You can actually get a lot more life out of those Sawzall blades if you slow down when you're cutting metal.

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[00:34:38] Eric Goranson: So if you will buy a really good blade or a really good drill bit with metal, slow is better. It'll actually make that be sharper and you won't take the temper out of it. A little more patience and use those tool settings is going to be the key. And that's my best tip with power tools as well. And they're powered, take the time, understand what all the little buttons do, how [00:35:00] many times do you use the clutch on your drill driver that's there to make it life a little bit easier, as well as different speeds on many saws and Sanders and things like that.

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[00:35:27] Eric Goranson: We are out of time. Now, one thing here, if you want to find out more about us, or you've got some tips or comment, you can email me over to roundthehouseonline. com. And then if you want to give me a call with any home improvement questions, that's 8 3 3. 239 4144. That number again is 833 239 4144. If you're listening to us on the radio, I have to say thank you on the talk media network, or if this is the podcast, of course, I will see you next Wednesday on the podcast for our mid week special.

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