{"id":32560,"date":"2018-11-16T05:01:07","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T12:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=32560"},"modified":"2018-11-19T16:34:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-19T23:34:00","slug":"cool-tools-2017-holiday-gift-guide-best-tools-10-or-less-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/cool-tools-2017-holiday-gift-guide-best-tools-10-or-less-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool Tools 2018 Holiday Gift Guide: Best Tools $10 or less"},"content":{"rendered":"

The editors of Cool Tools have curated a number of gift suggestions selected from the pages of Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities<\/a> (which itself makes a great gift), and from the website. This week: tools for $10 or less.<\/p>\n

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\n“I\u2019ve owned the earlier model of Panasonic\u2019s nose hair and ear hair trimmer<\/a> ($10) for over ten years, and it still works perfectly. I\u2019ve never had the sharpen the blades.”– Mark Frauenfelder<\/p>\n

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\n“After losing two (expensive) Fisher Bullet Space Pens, I stumbled across their significantly less expensive Stowaway<\/a> ($10). They\u2019re small, available in three styles, with or without a clip on the cap, and with a stylus on the opposite end of the tip. Three colors, too: black, red and blue.” — Eric Rosenberg<\/p>\n

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\n“The Kuru Toga<\/a> ($5) is a self-sharpening mechanical pencil that solves a problem that\u2019s inherent with normal mechanical pencils. After just a couple of lines of writing with a typical mechanical pencil, the lead becomes a blunt irregular chisel shape, leading to clumsier and more smeary writing. Experienced pencil users try to counteract this by rotating their pencil every few words, a tactic that works very imperfectly.” — Jonathan Coupe<\/p>\n

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\n“The 2.5-inch Teeny Turner<\/a> fits easily in a pocket; it\u2019s made of aircraft alloy shank, has a magnetic bit holder and the included bits (Phillips 00, Phillips 0, Torx 5,6 & 8, Flat 2mm and 3mm) are generally smaller and much easier to change out than my Craftsman.” — Chris Jacobs<\/p>\n

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\n“I bought this cheap LED headlamp<\/a> ($8) in 2015 and I use it a lot: walks at night, barbecuing, reading, fixing stuff, going under the crawl space and attic. It\u2019s basically a flashlight that you don\u2019t have to hold. It\u2019s comfortable and lightweight enough that it doesn\u2019t bother me when I wear it for extended periods. It\u2019s got plenty of light on the brightest setting.” — Mark Frauenfelder<\/p>\n

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\n“This is the tool kit<\/a> ($8) I reach for first whenever I need to take apart some piece of consumer electronics. It has a handle, a shaft extender, tweezers, and 42 different driver bits, including ones for torx, hex, flathead, cross, triangle, star, and circle screws.” — MF<\/p>\n

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\n“Natural peanut butter is delicious, but the initial stirring causes a mess. The minute you put in a spatula, the oil on top overflows everywhere. Instead, try this stirrer integrated into a screw-on lid<\/a> ($10). With a few quick turns, the peanut butter is completely mixed with zero spillage.” — Sessalee Hensley<\/p>\n

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\n“Simple games are the best. Tangrams<\/a> are an old puzzle based on a set of elemental shapes that can be arranged in thousands of different patterns. To recreate a given picture is challenging, yet not too daunting even for kids. Playing gently encourages lateral thinking. It exercises a geometrical logic, rather than words or numbers. The puzzles are almost like peanuts; you keep wanting just one more.” — KK<\/p>\n

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\n“Leave it to the Japanese to create a brush pen. This pocketable brush pen with 2 refills<\/a> ($8) has a super fine brush tip of actual bristles, perfect for tiny Kanji characters, or of course, doodling in your journal, or sketching in your Moleskine.” — KK<\/p>\n

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\n“This yellow plastic caliper<\/a> ($8) is lightweight, reasonably durable (I lose it before it wears out) and pocket-friendly (only 4 inches long). I use it frequently during house or auto repairs to ensure the right size replacement part (such as nuts and bolts, or o-rings and sealing washers) comes home with me from the store or junkyard. I find this easier, quicker, and more accurate in many cases than using a small rule.” — Ken Johnson<\/p>\n

Want more? Check out our 2017 Gift Guide<\/a> picks, as well as our 2016 Gift Guide<\/a>, 2015 Gift Guide<\/a>, 2014 Gift Guide<\/a> and our 2103 Gift Guide<\/a><\/p>\n

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Best inexpensive gift tools<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[41],"tags":[2366],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32560"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32565,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32560\/revisions\/32565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}