2017 Father's Day Gift Guide - Gifts for Dad

Don’t skimp on gifts for your dad. He drove you places and he taught you things. Remember the time he somehow fit three 3-wheelers in the back of his tiny Ford Ranger and drove you an hour to ride on those sand dunes? Or how about the times at Wet ‘N Wild when he got you to the front of a line by telling kids you were ride inspectors and flashed them his wallet like he had a badge. Now it’s time to say thanks… WITH SOMETHING AWESOME FROM THE THE 2017 DADAND.COM GIFT GUIDE

Here are a few things we’re interested in this year. As usual we weren’t paid for these endorsements, these are things we use and love and we are always straight with you guys. Some of the links may be Amazon affiliate links but the other links are just straight-up links, no spiffs or anything for us. Enjoy.

Kobalt Personalized Ratchet Set ~$20

This is a really nice little gift. It’s really high-quality. Not only does the box with the velveteen interior look and feel really nice, but the ratchet set itself is awesome. One of my favorite things about it is that it has a really small arc swing. Does that make sense? So you don’t have to ratchet it as far to make the bolt turn. it’s great for tight spaces where there’s no a lot of room.

The ratchet and sockets can be in blue, gold, or our favorite, black.

Brush Hero – The Ultimate Detail Brush ~$43

Brush hero is the kind of tool I dream of every time I wash my car or step in poop. Let me explain. It’s a brush that attaches to the end of the hose and the water pressure makes it spin. It has tons of attachments you can get to enable you to use it for other applications, but I love it for cleaning the wheels on my car, the shower (with an extra shower hose attachment thinger), and it’s great for getting the doody off your Sperry Topsiders, Spalding. When the housemaids scrub the floors they get the spaces in between. You now what I’m saying? Man I wish I invented this thing.

LOFTEK LED Flood Light ~$30

You’re trying to finish up before dark. It’s getting just a little too dark to see. What are the options? Hold a flashlight in your teeth and drool all down the front of your coveralls? Put on that headlamp you got for camping with the broken strap you tied in a knot? Drag out the giant extension cord and 500-watt flood light that summons every moth in a 5-mile radius and gets to be around 2,191 °F?

Not if you have a lightweight, cordless, rechargeable, LOFTEK LED floodlight. Which also doubles as a powerbank so you can plug in your phone and finish listening to Boingo Alive I & II.

This thing is awesome, the charge lasts a long-time (I’ve never used it to death), it has a belt clip and a rotating stand and you can even use the SOS button for when you run out of beer and want to signal your wife to please bring you a new one (I SAID “PLEEEEEASE”, Come on).

Kobalt Universal 115-Piece Standard (SAE) and Metric Mechanic’s Tool Set with Hard Case ~$99 on sale, normally $149

I don’t know how much clever stuff I can really say about a toolkit except that I have this and I like it, a lot. If I had a criticism it would be that I wish it had less of the weird little screwdriver bits and that they replaced them with like 10 star bits that deck screws eat up like candy. And I also wish I would have bought this FIRST instead of buying a smaller set here and a different set there because now I have 3 or 4 tool kits and I could have gotten by with one.

On the bright side I now have a toolkit that stays in the barn all the time, and one in the garage, and one in the basement.

Angle-izer ~$36

Dad’s got a square. And he can probably cut one. Rectangle too. But what if that last brick paver needs to be an obtuse triangle? Or he has one piece of redwood decking left, and it has to be cut into a perfect…dare I say…rhombus?

Tame those pesky rhombi shapes and get perfect cuts using the Angle-izer.

This is a slick little template tool that helps you make a perfect stencil for cutting tile, flooring, bricks, lumber, metal and maybe even ham sandwiches.

Honestly, I saw one like this on tv. It was bright yellow plastic and about $20. But I found this one made from aluminum, with aluminum hardware, which seems more durable to me, so I’m glad I chose this one over the plastic version.

Is he going to use it a lot? Probably not. But it’s only gonna take one use for him to know how much you love him. And he’ll look like a hero placing that perfect-fitting $24-per-square-foot backsplash tile.

Foam Cannon ~$20

This sure sounds like something from a 90s rave.

“Man, I was wearing my brand-new Jncos when they lit up the foam cannon and I got soaked.”

Said me never.

But it’s to wash your car.

This thing just vomits foamy car wash soap all over your car, helping to lubricate and break down dirt and grime before Dad goes all scrubby with the wash mitts.

It’s really a sight to see.

So it requires a pressure washer to work (stay away from the hose-powered versions. You add your favorite car wash soap with some warm water, crank up the pressure washer and bathe your ride in glorious white foam.

There are probably a hundred versions of this thing, but this one works great for about $20.

Kustom Kar Wash Kit ~Varies

If you’re considering the foam cannon, why not build a little “kit” for dad? Here’s some of Dadand’s favorites so you can mix and match:

Lowe’s 5-Gallon Bucket
It’s a bucket. It’s 3 bucks. Get two. Why two. Well, for Dad’s two-bucket wash method, that’s why. When you mention the two-bucket method, he’ll act like he knows but then he’ll go to youtube and find out what it is.

Grit Guard Inserts
These things drop into standard 5-gallon buckets and allow dirt from the wash mitt to naturally settle to the bottom of the bucket so you don’t re-introduce it during the washing process and scratch the paint. Buy two, since he’ll want to perfect the two-bucket method.

Wash Mitts
Dad probably has a couple of these already. But I bet they are old and crusty. Like the underwear you throw out without him knowing. I finally replaced my old mitts with this two-pack of non-branded chenille wash mitts. They were actually a tad bit smaller than the mitts I had, but it worked out better ‘cause they don’t swim around on your hand during washing or fall off in the bucket. And I don’t have small hands.

Turtle Wax ICE Spray Wax
I read a comment on a detailing video recently where some detailing snob joked about amateurs buying product from a big-box retailer. Well, I do. And my truck looks good. I’m “Joe America.” I don’t need to spend $99 on car polish. This Turtle Wax ICE spray wax is like $8 and super easy to apply after each wash, perfect for keeping the paint slick in between full wax jobs. So detail snob, go suck on your latte while I spend the $91 I saved on ammo, beef jerky and Miller High Life.

Vans X Peanuts ~$70

The Vans Old-Skool shoe is our go-to set of kicks, but overlay the nostalgia of Charlie Brown and these are Joe Cool-approved. You’ll get plenty of letters wearing these. [This reference is so obscure, that if you are the first comment where this is from, and you are correct, I’ll send you a Dadand T-shirt]

U2: The Joshua Tree ~Varies

It was Dec. 5, 1987. I was shivering along with 50,000 other people in Tampa as U2 took the stage, but in the moments to come, it was worth every second of camping out overnight behind Specs music waiting in line to buy tickets.

This album turns 30 this year. Which means I feel old. And while even their early stuff might not ever make Rob Gordon’s list, this is great album. What really matters is what you like, not what you are like. Right?

Now that dad is more sophisticated than jamming a cassette into his JVC deck, get him some vinyl and give him some space in the den to recall the good ‘ol days.

If you’re a super-fan, or rich, get the Super Deluxe Edition.

If you’re an audio snob, or ever worked at Championship Vinyl, get the 20^th Anniversary release in 180g vinyl.

If you’re like us, get the 2007 remastered original recording.

STIHL AK System ~$varies

We put this in our Holiday gift guide but it bears repeating. Dadand made the switch to battery-powered outdoor equipment. We just got tired of fuel-powered stuff that wouldn’t start, having to drain gas and cleaning carburetors. STIHL, famous for professional fuel-powered equipment that does start, stepped into the battery arena with its Lightning Battery Systems line of outdoor power equipment. We love the removable batteries in the AK line—which consists of a string trimmer, blower, hedge trimmer and…of course…a chainsaw. Pricing for this stuff is in line with what you’d find at a big box store, but you’ll only find them at a local STIHL dealer.

And YES, Pete did cut that tree down with that MSA120C but he can’t show you the photos because the dadand.com legal department’s heads exploded when they saw he wasn’t wearing full body armor for safety. (pssst, there might be a photo of me doing it here.)

More circumstantial proof: