if you had been good this year?
Mrs. Claus is scratching her head this year and I’d love to be inspired with what’s on everyone’s wish lists. Particularly tools …
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Wera torx and nut drivers.
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Makita Cordless Drill/Driver (and other stuff) with 2x batteries and fast charger set.
Doesn’t HAVE to be THIS one, but I’m tired of dragging corded tools to remote repairs, or crappy lesser battery-powered that just really don’t work…
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I just replaced my 10-year old cordless set with Milwaukee M18 Fuel brushless. It seems bombproof. Impact driver drove 24 Simpson SDS 3.5" fasteners the other night and didn’t lose a tick from the battery indicator.
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Metabo 18V Brushless 1/2" Sq.Impact Wrench 5.5Ah Kit
This beast can remove an harmonic balancer nut on a V8 easily. Max Torque of 450 ft/lbs.
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…I think the Ryobi impact guns at the space put out more than 450 ft-lbs.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81uhkr3icnL.SL1500.jpg
These wire strippers are on my list this year. They are a great set that work on so many different wires. The electronics committee have a set, they are worth well more than they cost, currently $16.68 on amazon.
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Another electronics suggestion is a Hakko 951, on the pricey side at $236.49. I own one of these and have never regretted the purchase. It was probably the 10th plus soldering iron I’ve purchased in my life. And I’m pretty confident will be the last soldering iron I will purchase. A nice added feature for the crafters among us, you can also by my favorite hot knife as an extra tip for this iron.
Nice thread @John_Marlow, I’m excited to see the other suggestions that should be on my christmas list. 
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I have wanted a nice low angle jack plane for a long time. Maybe a gift for myself this year.
https://www.lie-nielsen.com/product/low-angle-bench-planes/low-angle-jack-plane?node=4167
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Haha … Ryobi, that’s funny. They are less costly though.
My sewing machine and spinning wheel need some work, although new ones (to have in addition to) might be easier and less annoying.
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This is what I want for Christmas… A kitchen tool 
I already have plenty of regular tools and power tools… I want something to make better dough with and to make cakes from scratch instead of boxes - icing included. Eventually I want to get the pasta rollers for it too since it’s a real bear to try and roll stiff pasta dough out by hand.
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I bought the professional version 6qt for my wife about 3 years ago for Xmas. She loves it. We used to use it a lot, not so much any more. It’s awesome compared to a regular mixer.
We like ours, but this thing I think is weird happened, so I’ll share.
Brown goop started dripping out of the motor/gearbox housing. It would run off the beater shaft, and slather itself all along the chrome ring around the part that hovers over the bowl. It was quite offputting. We would wipe it off, try to figure out what it was, and then press on. It finally became too much to bear. Now the funny thing is, searching NOW, there’s BUCKETS of information out there about this, but how we had a TON of trouble figuring out what it was, and how to fix it, not to mention finding “the part” (esp. for a “reasonable price” for a “reasonable quantity”). A Google search NOW returns several sources…
Anyway, turns out it’s exactly what I thought it was, and figured it COULD NOT be! The grease from the gearbox. This is, in my opinion, a massive design flaw that KitchenAid should certainly fix with a couple of o-rings for what those babies cost, but apparently KA thinks it’s “no big deal”.
The “original” grease is Benalene 930, if I recall correctly.
Amusingly, it’s “food grade”, so the brown goo dripping into your cake batter won’t kill you, even though it’s not FDA approved 
Here’s a video from a repair facility that I WISH I could have found back when I was trying to do this the first time:
EDIT: I forgot to include that the brown goop would also run down the inside of the hollow stand, and leave “crud” wherever the mixer was sitting…
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If I were going to recommend a solder station “for life”, I’d point anyone to this:
https://www.amazon.com/Metcal-MX-5210-Soldering-Rework-Hand-Pieces/dp/B00B9DJ9TA
Nothing better out there. You can get the Thermaltronics knockoff for a bit less, but I can’t vouch for quality.
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Most commercial mixers have a similar packed grease design in the planetary and have allowances for repacking the grease.
Food grade grease registration is “regulated” by the NSF, grade H1 is rated for incidental contact and contains only certain allowed compounds. If it’s dripping, usually something is out of tolerance.
Back to topic: remember that screwdriver bits are wear items and need to be replaced as they wear! Makes good stocking stuffers.
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I am glad this issue hasn’t shown up on mine! I bought the 6qt one off Craig’s list for $75 and use it every time I’m in St Louis. Don’t think I would like brown goo in my dough.
What Andrew describes isn’t a new problem. I had the same issue with one I purchased in the eighties… Never wanted one since then. Kneeding dough isn’t too tough by hand… It certainly beats having brown goo in your dough.
My understanding is that whether you run into the problem will depend upon how ‘hard’ you push the motor. Kneeding whole grains make it almost guaranteed from what they told me.
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IF it does, it’s an easy fix, once you know and have the grease (especially a QUART of it like I had to buy back when I was fixing ours the first time).
I don’t say this to put anyone off having one, just be advised that IF you “don’t use it right” (apparently we don’t use it often enough, because we darn sure don’t use it for anything to stiff!) this can crop up. Again, easy fix, but seriously, a couple o-rings at $2.00 would solve a lot of yukiness (and let them use real grease, instead of “food grade”, whatever that amounts to, but I digress). I’ve even considered trying to make/use some “o-rings” myself, just to not have to do this periodically, but it turns out, I’d rather do this a couple times a decade than the alternatives…
@MathewBusby Good call on the bits! Stocking stuffers, indeed.
I have had a Kitchen Aid stand mixer for decades. Only had the issue a couple of times when I was abusing the mixer making Divinity or Marshmallows. That gooey stuff heats up the tranny enough to melt the grease and then it can start to leak.
Group buy on o-rings?
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