Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

Tool House Rocks

The “ultimate workshop” is one of those rooms that frequently crop up in a man’s dream home ramblings, right between mentions of the Holodeck and a putting green. Even for those who’ve never lifted a tool in their life, the allure of escaping to an oasis of tinkering, away from the rest of the house [...]

Idiot Insurance

You scrimped and saved to buy that perfect kayak and the exact rack to mount it on your ride’s roof. You planned your first paddle with it for months and had the time of your life once you finally got out on the water. In fact, the trip was so epic that you couldn’t stop [...]

Powder Power

Does your hate for shoveling snow equal your disdain for poor fuel economy? Then Honda’s first-ever Hybrid Snow Blower ($8,000) was designed for you. It’s gas-powered four-stroke iGX390 engine provides enough spinning auger and blower power to discharge 83 tons per hour at distances of up to 62 feet (bombs away!). The fossil fuel burner [...]

Cutting Crew

Find yourself habitually reaching for the kitchen shears whenever it’s time for an odd job or chore? Leave the comestible-cutter alone and grab yourself a Fiskars ShopBoss ($30). A veritable Swiss Army Snipper, the ShopBoss offers the best of heavy-duty cutting and a multi-function tool. Titanium coated heavy-duty blades with spring action, wire cutter and [...]

Keep Your Cool

Igloo’s Yukon series “cold locker” coolers ($330+) are a new breed of portable storage capable of keeping contents cool for up to fourteen days(!) on the road. Before your brain starts wandering to week long beer-a-thons on a deserted beach, be clear that these professional grade coolers were built with lengthy hunting & fishy trips [...]

Connect the....

Want one of those organized tool walls you keeping spying in the fictional garages of guys in the hardware store commercials but can’t be bothered to hang pegboard? Well, Tool Dots ($12) were created for the lazy neat freak in all of us. Each dot measures 1/2 inches in diameter and can securely hold tools [...]

Manly Cleaning

Everyday household disinfectant wipes may kill 99.9% of the germs and bacteria out there, but they’re about as flimsy as a wet gauze. Not so much with Tub O’Towels ($13), though. Made for Mike Rowe sized jobs, this tub of 90 wipes withstands even the most zealous cleaning tasks. Twice as durable, twice as large, [...]

Rolling the pain out of paint

The Black & Decker Rapid Roller ($35) is designed to make your next paint job take half the time compared to using traditional roller brushes. Featuring an exclusive pivoting head, the brush can be used straight on or at 40 and 80 degree angles for easy edging and maneuvering in tight spaces. Thanks to its [...]

You say you want a Swivelution

Garage storage solutions haven’t evolved much in the last 50 years, and that frustrated the Penner family, who has operated a manufacturing company since 1981. The tool boxes in their workshops just weren’t passing muster, so they decided to build their own. Instead of falling back to standard drawer design which they saw could be [...]

Handle Sticky Situations

Just as Zeus produced Ares, Hercules, and Hermes, so hath the original Duct Tape spawned Scotch’s new Tough Duct Tape line. The new branding is about as redundant as it gets, but Scotch clearly wanted to reassure loyalists that the latest heirs in the Duct Tape family were every bit as useful as their take-on-all-projects [...]

When large just isn't enough

The KASTOmaxcut Bandsaw could very well be the king of cutting. It’s got a blade as thick as a man’s arm and the wheels that make even the baddest mudders look puny. In terms of oomph, it uses a 29 horsepower motor to power one-of-two blade options that can be hydraulically positioned for vertical or [...]

Naughty and nice

One of our favorite things about the holiday season is its tendency to remind us what is really important… important things like the sheer thrill of racing down a snow blanketed slope of precarious grade, red-faced with tears of joy streaming out the corners of our eyes, ignoring the warnings and caution of mothers as [...]

Sound Off

Padlocks are a great way to keep things secure. The world’s supply of bolt cutters isn’t exactly dwindling though, so there’s always a risk that your bike, tool box, or other toys can get snagged when you aren’t around. The U.S. Patrol Siren Padlock Alarm ($13) adds another layer of protection by emitting a 110db [...]

Take A Workshop Anywhere

Most of us have a go to tool for every job that comes across our plate. The POWER8 Workshop ($340) is a good all-in-one starter kit though for those just beginning the grail quest that is building a tool collection.

A Different Kind of Suck

Everyone knows that the only thing more embarrassing than your assortment of Dungeons and Dragons figurines is the collection of french fries and smashed peanut butter crackers that you’ve accumulated beneath the driver’s seat. Women dig a clean car, not as much as they dig a guy with hoards of cash, but at least you [...]