I have heard bad things about the tire spoons from HF. Seems that you couldn't really mess up a tire spoon, but the two people that I talked to said they couldn't even use them for mounting motorcycle tires. Well they could, but they immediatly replaced them with good spoons after using them only once.
Noah
A thin coat of caulking applied to the bead it's self will help on your sealing problem. Most leaks occur where you start and stop your bead when welding it up. Hope this helps