Tooled up
Living—-as we have until now—-in rented property we’ve never really collected a great deal of tools, other than those needed to repair and maintain bicycles. But we’re hoping to be able to do some work on our new house, so we thought it was about time to buy a drill. After helpful advice from DIY-experienced friends (which boiled down to “don’t buy Black and Decker, whatever you do”), we’ve invested in a nice Makita cordless drill, which we got a great deal on at an online store. We got a free spare battery and an 102-piece set of bits, hole-cutters, screwdriver and socket bits (the drill also acts as a power screwdriver). There’s even an allen key bit the exact size of the Ikea allen key, which will be immensely useful in the next few days.
The set of bits came in a separate hard case, which was packaged opened up flat (so that you could gaze adoringly at the titanium-tipped, steel-clad goodies within), with a transparent plastic cover over the top to stop everything falling out in transit. All very well, but the plastic cover was held on by no fewer than 28 tiny little screws, rather than being glued or taped on. But wait! Hold your variable torque horses! I’ve just bought a drill that’s also a fancy-pants, all-singing, all-dancing powered screwdriver—-I can save myself no end of time by using that to remove all those screws. So I just need to get into the accessory kit to get the screwdriver bits… Oh.
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Oh no! It's a slippery slope now. Next you'll be wanting the high power SDS+ drill for when that one can't cope.
It becomes an obsession. Doubly so if you do your own car maintenance.
Seriously, though, buy the mid-price stuff, and look after it. It won't take the abuse of the pricey stuff, and it won't fall apart like the cheap stuff. The only real extravagances in my toolkit are a few special tools for car work (like a Land Rover fan drive shaft retaining tool, you can do with out it but it takes twice as long) and a Teng socket set worth nearly £200. Everything else has been bought to this rule and performed admirably.
by AndyC the WB @ 27/07/2006 5:08 pm • Permalink •
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It's easy: cut the plastic all round with a Stanley knife; get out the bit you need (charge up the battery, of course) and then remove the screwed-on remains of the plastic.
by Martin McCallion @ 28/07/2006 9:08 am • Permalink •
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Where did you get the makita deal?
by GeorgeG @ 29/07/2006 3:08 pm • Permalink •
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I never looked after the Wolf drill I bought in 1963 - I'm still using it! No plastic in it, not even the label.....
by Jonathan Briggs @ 29/07/2006 6:08 pm • Permalink •
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They figure that once you get the package open, you're really going to appreciate the drill...
by Aaron F. @ 30/07/2006 4:08 pm • Permalink •
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I once installed some software and whilst it was installing decided to read the license agreement which stated " By opening this packed you agree to the licensing agreement". umm...that was inside the package and unreadable from the outside.
by Ian @ 31/07/2006 6:07 am • Permalink •
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In that case it is unenforcible as a contract.
by Jonathan Briggs @ 31/07/2006 5:08 pm • Permalink •
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In that case it is unenforcible as a contract.
Perhaps you'd like to take that up with Guido, our vice president of... contract enforcement.
by Aaron F. @ 01/08/2006 3:09 am • Permalink •
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Aaron F,
If you can't read a contract without first agreeing to its terms it is, in law, unenforcible. I pointed this out to Dell when they tried to impose ludicrous warranty conditions I could not have known about until after I opened their packaging. They backed down and had an engineer on my premises within 48 hours and fixed the problem.
by Jonathan Briggs @ 01/08/2006 8:09 am • Permalink •
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Bsag old girl,
The anti-British lobby have decided that GMT is no longer acceptable; you have to use UTC, the "Universal Time Constant"..... or to give it its proper name "Greenwich", Mean time, here is the news......
by Jonathan Briggs @ 01/08/2006 8:09 am • Permalink •
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They backed down and had an engineer on my premises within 48 hours and fixed the problem.
Oh, yes. When our customers complain, we always have a trusted engineer see to it that the problem is fixed. Permanently.
by Aaron F. @ 02/08/2006 5:09 am • Permalink •
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