Lifehacker: No matter how handy or non-handy you are, there’s a good chance you have a power drill somewhere in your home (honestly, it should be part of any basic tool chest). They’re useful for a wide range of DIY projects, from screwing together furniture to more involved projects.
8 comments:
This is a wonderfully surprising article. I wouldn’t have thought of using a power drill in a lot of these circumstances, but to know that there are bits available to help with these situations is nice, if occasionally comedic. The roller dryer bit is something I haven’t used before, but I’ve certainly used a drill in a fashion where the end result worked out as the bit intends. I probably would not use it as a vent cleaner for simplicity’s sake, but other applications and uses the article suggests are intriguing, like the log splitter bit - which is similar to a step drill bit - or the augur bit - with just a very long flute and wide radius. I find the reciprocating saw attachment to be questionable. Does that stop me from wanting to try it out? Not at all. The general metal cutter bit is slightly less questionable, though I’m wondering if its smart in terms of efficiency and safety.
I have been around power tools my entire life but I never really was introduced to them, and subsequently did not realize how much I love power drills and impact drivers. My grandpa did carpentry and woodworking as a hobby, and my dad would work on home improvement projects using the skills he learned from my grandpa. Only after gaining an understanding in the usefulness and practical applications of power drills last semester did I realize I had an interest in them. Being relatively new to power drills, I have only had the opportunity to drill into concrete and through two-by-fours while assisting my dad with his current project. I did not even think that there may be attachments that can paint, cut metal, or saw. While I am not particularly interested in cutting metal or sawing, I can see the versatility of these attachments and how they can reduce the number of tools one needs to procure.
This was such an interesting exploration of what can be done with a drill! I’m a big fan of multipurpose tools, and it's fascinating how much can be done by just spinning something really fast as the main driver for different forms of work. In my intro to electrical and computer engineering class we were just talking about how a motor was one of the very first ways electricity was harnessed to cause things to move in the real world, and I think Benjamin Franklin would have had a wonderful time reading this article. I’m particularly interested in the paint sprayer, and the paint roll cleaner. Cleaning paint rollers is one of my least favorite activities after painting, and I can't believe I never thought to use a drill to speed up the process a bit. Overall I think this article shows how much can be done with just one tool creating an easy and affordable way to expand a home shop and get to use a few more niche tools that are often hard to obtain outside of specialized shop spaces.
I had no idea there were so many power drill attachments. The most surprising one to me was the dryer vent cleaner attachment. The problem of dryer vents being difficult to clean is not one I would have thought would be solved with a power drill, but it seems to work so well! I love innovative solutions! I wonder how the developer thought of that solution. Were they looking to solve this particular problem or did they happen upon it by accident? The other attachment that surprised me was the pump attachment. I would not have expected that rotary motion would so easily be able to convert to a pumping motion. I think the most useful attachment would be the paint roller dryer. I have never seen a good way of cleaning paint rollers that actually gets the paint off. This is the closest – and fastest – that I’ve ever seen.
The paint sprayer attachment reminds me of an attachment you can put on either a hose or pressure washer that will cover your car in foam and make it look like a giant marshmallow. The roller dryer thing reminds me of whenever I bake/cook and use an eggbeater or mixer, I will lift the mixer out of the mixture and run it on super high speed to shake off any bits and pieces left. People are always surprised when I show them how to do that and I personally am surprised that they've never thought of it! The vent cleaner honestly made me wonder how often the dryer vents in my dorm are cleaned. I know that at least the lint catcher is rarely cleaned because SOME people were NOT taught that you need to clean the lint catcher. Seriously, I worry people are going to start a fire.
Looking at these attachments and their application (the article itself was well made and appropriately linked to several applications of the tool) it demonstrated some unique approaches to certain tasks. Ultimately, from assessing their use, these are much more intended for smaller, DIY projects rather than replacing tools that are specifically made to do the job, aside from a few that could be more helpful at a larger scale, such as the log splitter and the metal cutter. I say this as looking at their application shows a capacity for these tools to allow for greater accessibility for this kind of work and allows us to make certain tasks easier and safer as well. Instead of using an axe and a significant amount of force, you can instead use the log splitter drill attachment to make splitting require less force and impact. Same for sheet metal cutting, instead of needing to use metal snips for long durations, the metal cutter allows an easy feed of metal and less potential for contact with the metal itself, hopefully preventing cuts. While a lot of these attachments are less widely applicable, each shows its own promise for the right consumer.
Reading this article was very interesting to me, opening I thought it was going to tell me what the best bits on the market were and instead I was in for a nice surprise. I guess that is why they say not to judge a book by its cover. I knew of some of the attachments on this list but was fascinated to see what was out there that could have been very useful to me in previous projects and I was wishing I had known about them sooner. The tool I wish I had known about on my most recent project was the paint sprayer. I recently had to paint a lot of very uneven surfaces with a solid colored base coat and truly wish that I had a tool like that in my arsenal. Additionally I would have loved a paint roller cleaner because after 12 hours of painting the last thing I wanted to do was wash the rollers by hand but alas I had no choice, but it did leave me wishing that there was an easier way to wash them. It looks like I will be buying some new tools for the toolbox.
I really enjoy reading articles such as this one because of the bounds of creativity that you might not expect to be seen in the construction field. I had never seen a paint sprayer attachment for a drill and before digging deeper was unable to visualize what that would even look like. But the most interesting attachment I thought was the wood splitter. Most of the time when I find myself needing to split wood is when I'm camping in the middle of the woods. I never have that much on me but I do bring an axe to split the wood. It's nice to know I might be able to substitute a large axe with a smaller drill and different attachments. This also brings up the question of how much do you have to use an attachment before you just buy a separate tool. The separate tool is most likely more efficient and will last longer than the drill attachment but will also cost more and take up a larger amount of storage space.
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