12 Useful DeWalt Tools That Can Help Solve Everyday Problems

If you hang out in DIY, automotive, mechanical, or hobby spaces long enough, you're likely to encounter a few niche tools designed for rare, specific jobs. They might be nice to have, but they'll collect dust while you return to your screwdrivers, wrenches, and other unsung heroes that solve everyday problems.

If you've got limited space, a modest budget, or if you're just getting started with a hobby or handy work, these 12 products solve common problems and might be a good addition to your tool collection. They cover a wide range of tasks, from cutting and fastening to measuring, layout, and troubleshooting issues.

Instead of a spinning or reciprocating blade with sharpened teeth, an oscillating multi-tool uses small back-and-forth oscillations to cut, scrape, sand, and more. When an oscillating saw blade encounters a rigid material like metal or wood, it cuts into that material with relative ease. The same thing doesn't happen when an oscillating blade encounters softer materials like carpet or skin. Doctors use an oscillating saw to remove plaster casts from broken bones for precisely that reason.

As the name suggests, multi-tools have multiple applications depending on what blade attachment you're using. DeWalt's Atomic 20V Max multi-tool comes with a general-purpose bi-metal blade, a fast wood-cutting HCS blade, and a universal accessory adapter to make it work with most non-DeWalt attachments. You'll also get a 4Ah battery, charger, and a tool bag. A multi-tool becomes more useful and more versatile the more attachments you collect, so it doesn't just solve one common problem. With a little practice and a few multi-tool tips and tricks, it can solve lots of problems.

If you think of the wooden frame as the skeleton of a building, then drywall is like the skin, withholding insulation and protecting pipes or wires circulating through the walls. Putting up new drywall panels is fairly simple if there's nothing in the way, but if you have to account for pipe fittings, electrical outlets, light switches, or other protrusions, things can get a little more complicated. Instead of measuring the precise position of those protrusions and cutting them out of the drywall in advance, a cut-out tool lets you do it while hanging the drywall.

To use it, you put up your panel and drive a couple of screws to hold it in place. The drywall will hang crooked because a protrusion is in the way, but that's what you want. Push the cutter into the drywall inside the electrical box or pipe, find the outer edge, trace around the box, and the drywall should drop neatly into place.

DeWalt's cordless drywall cut-out tool spins up to 26,000 RPM and features a tool-free bit exchange so you can swap bits out without needing a chuck key. A guard ring controls the depth of your cuts so you can trim the drywall without accidentally slicing up wires or anything else inside the walls. You can adjust the ring's depth or remove it entirely if you want to freehand your cuts.

This rolling power station from DeWalt is a charger, car jumpstarter, and a battery maintainer. You can use it to recharge a dead battery or keep your car battery in a working state over a long period. If, for instance, you're going on vacation and your car's going to be sitting for a while, a battery maintainer makes sure it stays healthy and ready to start your car when you come back.

DeWalt's rolling charger, jumpstarter, and maintainer connects to your car's battery with the attached alligator clamps, monitors the voltage, and kicks on a trickle charge when it falls too low, to prevent the slow discharge that usually happens over time. In addition to jumpstarting or maintaining a car battery, this gadget has two USB charging ports and one 120V AC outlet for powering your other devices. If you need power on the go, this power station could be your solution.

The charger delivers a 210 amp starting charge and 70 amp continuous charge. It's got a built-in alternator check function and a reverse polarity alarm to let you know if you've accidentally hooked up the alligator clips backward. A telescoping handle expands when you need to cart your power source to a new location and tucks away when in storage. There's also built-in storage for the clamps and cables.

DeWalt's USB rechargeable 3x360-degree green line laser helps you level objects or align materials, whether you're hanging family photos or laying out a new construction project.

It only takes half an hour to charge, and it can operate for up to nine hours on a charge, or you can use it continuously when plugged into a power adapter (not included). It remains accurate to within an eighth of an inch at a distance of 33 feet and has a visibility range of up to 150 feet, depending on environmental conditions. It can be picked up from more than twice that distance using DeWalt's green laser line detector, sold separately.

You can mount the green line laser in multiple ways, using the built-in tripod threads or the integrated rare earth magnets. It's designed to stand up to harsh workshop conditions with an IP54 rating to protect it from water and dust. It also has overmolded housing to reduce wear and tear.

Measuring large areas with a tape measure is monotonous and challenging. Depending on the size of the space you're measuring and the length of your tape measure, you might have to make several measurements and add them together. This isn't the easiest nor the most accurate. Fortunately, light can do the heavy lifting for you.

You might remember from physics class that speed can be calculated by dividing the distance by duration. Likewise, if you know the speed and the duration, you can calculate the distance traveled. Because the speed of light through a medium is constant, you can bounce a laser off something and count the time between its departure and return to measure the exact distance.

DeWalt's laser-based distance measurer has a range of 200 feet and can measure distance, area, and volume with an accuracy of plus or minus a sixteenth of an inch at 32 feet. A blacklit display helps you see the readings indoors and outside, and it also features haptic feedback for working in noisy environments. A laser distance measurer is often more accurate and more convenient than conventional low-tech measuring techniques, delivering measurements literally at the speed of light.

If you're hanging a picture, television, or anything else, you usually want to find a wooden or metal stud. That's especially true if you're planning to hang or mount something weighty. Of course, it's hard to find a beam behind drywall.

One strategy is to use a strong magnet to hunt for screws in the studs. Another is to knock on the walls, listening for changes in tone. Or you could just use a stud finder. When used properly, stud finders measure changes in capacitance to detect different densities beneath the drywall. When it detects a change in subsurface density, the stud finder alerts you with a light and sound.

Most stud finders alert you when they detect the edges of a stud, but DeWalt's 3/4-inch stud finder shows you the center, and it helps you find the stud using directional LED arrows. It detects wood or metal at a depth of 3/4 of an inch. In addition to detecting studs, it also has AC and live wire detection to help prevent you from accidentally drilling into electrical wiring. Once you've found the stud, a center channel lets you leave pencil markings for later drilling or fastening.

Thermal vision is not only a cool superpower, it's also a useful way of identifying problem areas. Light comes in several different flavors. We're most familiar with visible light but that's only a very small portion of all light, constrained to a narrow band of frequencies and wavelengths. In addition to visible light there's also radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, UV light, X-rays, and gamma rays.

While we can't see those other frequencies of light outside the narrow visible range, it's possible to physically detect some of them in other ways. In fact, you detect infrared light all the time, in the form of heat. Imaging thermometers can also detect infrared radiation and translate their readings into visible images. The warmest temperatures are typically seen in the brightest colors and the coldest temperatures show up as dark spots.

DeWalt's 12V MAX imaging thermometer measures temperatures between 14 degrees and 480 degrees Fahrenheit, and displays both thermal and visual images. It could be used for thermographic inspections, measuring the surface temperature of parts of your home and other objects. Cold spots in your walls might point to gaps in your home's insulation while hot spots in your engine could suggest an automotive problem, and there are plenty of other ways to use a thermal camera. The thermometer comes with a battery, fast charger, storage box, download link for report writing software, and an SD card for saving captured images.

An inspection camera, also known as a borescope, has a camera on one end and a display on the other, connected by a length of semi-flexible camera cable. They are essentially endoscopes used for seeing into hard to reach or inaccessible spaces.

While doctors use them to look inside a patient's body, we can use inspection cameras to see inside pipes to find clogs or leaks, look inside heating and cooling vents, see inside walls or behind heavy appliances, to get a better view of a car's engine, and more. You could even use it for pure exploration, by sending it into underground cavities, the hollows of trees, or into sewer grates.

DeWalt's 12V MAX 9mm inspection camera has a removable 3.5-inch wireless screen, it can magnify images up to three times, and features a micro SD slot for saving photos and videos. It comes with a battery, fast charger, three-foot camera cable, and storage box, along with hook, magnet, and mirror accessories.

Also known as a chalk line, a chalk reel kit can be used to mark straight lines across materials and surfaces for design or construction purposes. If you need to make a clean cut, paint straight lines, put up wallpaper, or anything else that needs precise lines over a long distance, a chalk reel is a low-tech but reliable solution.

DeWalt's aluminum chalk reel has a closed spool design to help prevent tangles and protect the reel from debris. There's a small door through which you can pour crushed chalk, which coats a thread with high-visibility powdered pigment. To use the reel, lay the string horizontally across your desired surface and pull it tight. It should hover just above what you want to mark. Pinch the string between your fingers, pull it upward slightly, and release. When the string bounces back and hits the surface, it deposits chalk in a straight line.

In addition to marking flat surfaces, you can also use a chalk reel to mark a straight line across multiple objects on the same plane. For example, while framing a house, you could mark a line across several wooden studs all at the same time, even though they aren't touching. You can even create vertical lines by hanging the chalk reel like a plumb bob. This reel has a durable aluminum housing and comes with a 4-ounce bottle of powdered red chalk.

Ordinary shovels are good for digging general-purpose holes, but if you want to install a mailbox or fence posts, you want a hole that's a specific size and shape. That's where a post hole digger, also known as a clam-shell digger or post hole piner, can be pretty useful.

A post hole digger is essentially two narrow shovels bolted together, with one point of articulation. Holding the handles together keeps the blades parallel and in the open position. Rounded edges help the blades pierce grass, dirt, clay, and more. Then, pulling the handles apart closes the blades and grabs onto the dirt for removal.

DeWalt's 46-inch fiberglass handle post hole digger has hardened carbon steel blades and is designed to dig holes with just the right dimensions to hold a post in place. It could also be used to dig small, uniform holes for planting saplings and other small plants. Overmolded end grips are intended to improve the user's comfort, so you can dig more holes without blisters.

When you're working in your garage at home or in a professional setting, you probably have the benefit of convenient work surfaces, but that's not necessarily the case when you're working on the go.

DeWalt's heavy-duty work stand provides a pair of table legs, but no connecting surface. You could turn the stand into a workable table by throwing a piece of plywood or another piece of flat, sturdy material on top.

The stands are essentially a couple of metal sawhorses with a weight capacity of 1,000 pounds apiece. They're made of lightweight aluminum, weighing in at just 15.4 pounds combined, and the pieces collapse down into a compact package. There's even a transport latch on the sides that connects both stands so they can be transported and stored together between usage.

A wrench gives the user extra leverage for fastening and unfastening nuts and bolts, and an extended reach ratchet gives you even more leverage. DeWalt's 1/4-inch extended reach ratchet is handheld, battery powered, and has a compact construction that allows a user to work in narrow spaces where other drivers might not fit.

Controls include a variable speed trigger and a forward/reverse switch that's easy to access and manipulate, so you can control the ratchet even with greasy or gloved hands. The wrench delivers up to 45 foot-pounds of maximum torque. The ratchet mechanism means it turns in one direction but not the other, and you don't have to lift the tool after each turn.

A trigger lock prevents the ratchet from activating accidentally, and a built-in work light helps to illuminate your workspace. DeWalt's battery-powered extended reach ratchet is powered by the company's 20V MAX battery platform, which is sold separately.