"Doug White" wrote in message
...
My daughter just bought her first house about 40 miles away. She is
very handy, but I need to give her some or her own tools so she
stops
borrowing mine...

1st item is a small(ish) 3/8" electric drill. Various thoughts &
concerns:

1) Keyless chucks: She is small (~ 110 lbs), and doesn't have a ton
of
handstrength. I have a 12 year old DeWalt that has one, and unless
I
crank on it, it slips occasionally. Are the new ones better enough
that
I should go that route? She is not the sort to lose a chuck key,
but
keyed chucks are getting scarce on the better brands of drills.

2) Cordless vs corded. She will probably use a drill once a month
tops,
and maybe every 6 months after she gets settled in. When she needs
a
drill, she isn't going to want to wait to charge up a battery, which
means leaving one on the charger. Are the chargers & battery
chemistries good enough that it's not a big deal now? My DeWalt has
NiCd's, and they are not very reliable for intermittent use. I've
had a
couple packs rebuilt with NiMH, but I don't have enough mileage on
them
to compare. I know most vendors seem to have gone to lithium, but
I'm
guessing they need to live on a charger or they will self discharge.
Going corded would work, but they are getting scarcer. A keyed
chuck
corded drill is a very rare beast.

3) Brands: I know this is a bit like Ford vs Chevy. Between the
batteries & the slipping chuck, I'm not real happy with DeWalt, but
that
is old news. I'd like to get her something with some of the niceer
new
features, like levels & LED lights.

Suggestions & comments?

Thanks!

Doug White

I'm happy with the chuck and new battery of my older DeWalt DC730, but
the drill I grab most often for small house projects (not
metalworking) is a little Ryobi TEK-4 that's powerful enough to
install hinges and brackets and small enough to stash in a pocket, the
reason I bought it. The 1/4" hex chuck substantially reduces its size
and weight and is very convenient for alternately drilling and
installing screws up on a ladder. Its Lithium battery holds a charge
much better than my NiCd drills. It is less of a risk to the furniture
than the DeWalt which I don't carry in a holster often enough to
remember not to bang it into things.

Since the Ryobi handles the little jobs, the other drill I couldn't do
without is a corded 1/2" Milwaukee Magnum Holeshooter that is powerful
enough to drill a steel door for the lockset. I think that's the upper
limit of what the average homeowner might need.

I'm not the average homeowner, most of my woodworking is with oak and
PT SYP which need pilot holes more than pine does.

A light pocketable drill for pilot holes and a powerful one to sink
the screws has been a good combination. Two larger corded or cordless
ones are awkward unless you have a table to set one on. My neighbor
who installed kitchens used two identical cordless drills (same
battery & charger) which was fine when he had the countertop handy,
but when we do outdoor jobs one always lands in the dirt.
-jsw