5 Obscure Lowe's Tools You Probably Didn't Realize Existed

There are a lot of things you probably expect to find in your local Lowe's, like tools, hardware, building supplies, and textiles. The big-box store has everything you might need to tackle a wide assortment of projects, from small DIY fixes to major construction. Part of the appeal of retailers like this is the wide variety of inventory they carry. You can get all your shopping done in one go, without having to stop at a bunch of different stores. There are over 1,700 physical Lowe's locations across the U.S., with each store offering roughly 40,000 items. If that weren't enough, there's also a robust digital storefront boasting an additional 2 million products for sale, including a few finds that outshine Home Depot in price and quality.

But while not many people would be surprised to find that Lowe's sells a dozen varieties of hammers or every size fastener under the sun, there are a few tools lining the store's shelves that you might not have realized even existed. Some of these may be unique versions of common products that offer novel features, while others might offer solutions to problems you didn't even realize you had. By taking a deep dive into Lowe's inventory, you might just be able to uncover some obscure and truly unusual finds that you can use on your next project. You can then get a better idea about whether or not the novelty is worth the price by examining its specifications and taking a look at what customers have had to say about it.

There are a lot of great utility knives out there, but most of them fall into one of two types: There are the breakaway knives that use a single, long, and usually thin razor, where you can continue to remove the end segments, and there are the more heavy-duty ones that use the shorter, trapezoidal utility razors. But Lowe's carries a brand called ToughBuilt, which is well known as a major portable toolbox brand, but has also started earning a bit of a reputation for more unique solutions in the world of utility knives. There is the ToughBuilt Pry Bar ¾-inch Folding Utility Knife that's similar to the Milwaukee FastBack, but with a retractable slide in the head, and there's the ToughBuilt Scraper Utility Knife that holds the blade horizontally, but perhaps the company's most unique design is the ToughBuilt Reload Utility Knife.

This is a utility knife that comes with two removable magazines containing a spring-loaded mechanism. These magazines hold reserves of blades, which they can then autoload into the chamber of the knife by pulling back on an actuator and then flicking it forward. A quick-release button allows you to remove old blades before repeating this process, and once a magazine is empty, you can simply discharge it and replace it with a full one.

The tool retails for $29.99 and currently has a 4.4 out of 5 on the Lowe's website, with 82% of customers stating that they would recommend it to others. Many reviewers claimed that they loved the overall construction and the convenience of the spring-loaded magazine mechanism, but it's worth noting that there have been a few reports of jamming and loose blades, raising concerns about the tool's long-term durability.

Anyone who's ever tried to use a hole saw knows just how frustrating they can be. Hitting a knot or failing to keep them perfectly straight can result in catching, which in turn leads to some serious wrist pain when your drill tries to spin away from you. But drilling the hole is only the first part of the problem, because once you're done, you have a ring of wood, metal, plastic, or masonry stuck between the pilot bit and the circular blade that you have to get out before you can make your next cut. Lowe's sells a set of specialty hole saw arbors that aim to fix this frustration point.

The Spyder ½-inch Rapid Core Eject Quick Change Steel/Tungsten Carbide Hole Saw Arbor is designed to remove the drilled-out core without you needing to spend ten minutes trying to pry it out with an old flathead screwdriver. There is a button located on the side of the arbor that allows you to pull back the hole saw and eject the core. This particular model has a ½-inch hex, ¼-inch TCT drill bit with a 2 ⅞-inch drilling depth, though the company also makes another version of the arbor in a ⅜-inch size.

The Spyder Rapid Core Eject Hole Saw Arbor has a 4.1 out of 5 on the Lowe's website with a 74% recommendation rate. It seems that while many users found it convenient and easy to use, others have found that it doesn't stand up to as much abuse as a traditional arbor, claiming that it fails when drilling through harder materials.

Lift jacks are incredibly useful tools, but most of them are designed for automotive or construction work. There aren't a lot of tools out there that are designed for making it easy to get the heavy stuff around your house off the floor.

That's where the Irwin Quick Lift Manual Material Handling Jack comes in. Irwin is an underrated tool brand that has many products worth considering, and while this might look more like a hand clamp than a classic jack, you'll find that it's actually a clever design that allows users to jack up small but heavy items with a single hand. The tool has a four-armed base with a lifting plate. When the plate is at the bottom, users can slide it under whatever it is they're trying to lift. Then they simply need to squeeze the lever to lift the plate and raise the object off the ground. Irwin markets this as a tool for lifting cabinetry and appliances, but also as being useful for providing tension for installing flooring, and holding things like doors and windows up while you install them. The tool can lift 330 pounds up to 10 inches from the base and has two release methods: There's a quick release for when the lift isn't under load, and a precision-controlled release for when it is.

The Irwin lift retails for $119.00 on the Lowe's site, where it has a 4.9 out of 5 review score and a 98% recommendation rate. The vast majority of users had nothing but praise for the tool's lifting power and versatility, with many claiming that they used it for everything from doors and cabinets to stoves and refrigerators.

People who aren't familiar with hand saws might not know that saws only cut in one direction as you push and pull. Most Western hacksaws are designed to cut on the push motion. This makes it easier for the user to exert more force as you push the saw away from you, thus removing more material with each stroke and making it easier to cut through a piece much faster. Japanese saws are typically made of thinner material and are designed to cut on the pull motion. This is slower, but it's straighter and much more accurate, which makes it a much better tool for achieving flush cuts, joinery cuts, and other cuts that require a higher degree of precision. You don't have to get these from Japan though. The Lowe's affiliated brand Kobalt has a few you might like.

The Kobalt 10-inch Extra Fine Cut Pull Saw is modeled after the Japanese style, but with a more minimalist and ergonomic design, featuring a curved two-polymer handle padded with a comfort grip. It has a 10-inch SK5 blade with induction-hardened teeth. You can get this saw at your local Lowe's for $18.98. It currently has a 4.5 out of 5 on the store's site, with 82% of customers stating that they would recommend it. The tool is praised for its sharpness out of the box and the quality of its blade, as well as the ergonomic comfort of the handle.

Those seeking another variation of the pull saw might also want to check out the Kobalt High-Performance 10-inch Extra Fine Cut Folding Pull Saw, which has a double-sided blade and a bifurcated, gear-jointed handle that folds up to cover the edges when it's time to store it.

A good table saw is the cornerstone of any woodworker's tool collection, but there are a few different kinds out there. Massive shop saws have largely gone out of vogue in recent years, and portable construction-style table saws with their 10-inch blades and compact cut tables have been getting much more popular due to their relatively small footprint. These are still quite large, however, and might be a lot more tool than someone who's more into smaller wood crafts is looking for.

The Siavonce Mini Table Saw is a benchtop saw that is positively minuscule compared to most of what you'll find on the hardware store shelves. It has a 4-inch blade nestled into a table that is only 7 ½ inches across. This is powered by a 90V motor that is able to generate up to 4,500 RPM. You can angle the blade from 0 to 90 degrees, but the cut depth is only ⅝-inch. Siavonce states that this tool is good for cutting wood, masonry, glass, gypsum, and non-ferrous metals like copper and aluminum. It even comes with three different kinds of blades: an aluminum alloy combination blade, a diamond saw blade, and a resin saw blade.

You can get this tiny saw for $102.97 at Lowe's. The tool has received only four reviews on the store's website so far, with a 3.8 out of 5 average. Two of them were 5-star reviews from customers who were happy with the saw's capabilities and said that they used it to complete small projects, claiming that it performed exactly as expected. One of the lower reviews was from a customer who said the saw wasn't powerful enough to cut through ⅛-inch aluminum, and the other was from someone who said it wasn't big enough for their needs.

This list was compiled in order to bring attention to some of the more unusual and obscure tools sold at Lowe's that many shoppers might not know about. What constitutes an 'obscure' tool is subjective, but we aimed to choose products that were either entirely different from the models offered by other brands or had a unique feature or design element that helped to set them apart. This way, readers could get a more well-rounded view of the options available and maybe find a tool that offers a solution to a problem that isn't available through more conventional tools.

We thoroughly examined the tools available on the Lowe's website in order to find the most unique items currently available, taking the time to examine their specs and features to ensure that they were not only unusual but that they would fulfill a need that is genuinely useful. We then looked at customer reviews so that we could show readers what users think about how these tools perform in real-world applications, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of the tool as well as unique or unintended applications that customers have discovered.