Harbor Frieght success. HF saves the day.

No point, just a story.

I have 3 drills, one I bought new at Sears in 1974
one that the guy at Black & Decker was going to
throw away because a customer didn't want to pay to fixi it. So I asked
for it right in front of the customer, and I fixed it in 30 minutes when
I got home, by putting a washer on the armature, so it didn't move back
and forth so mch, and
one that I found lying on a sidewalk in the city,
partly covered with greasy junk, maybe from incredibly dirty hands, just
covered in grease.

I also found in the trash some 1/2" keyless chucks and I put them on two
of the three drills.

So yesterday and today, I can only find one of the three drills, the one
with the small chuck, that won't hold a 5/8" bit with a 1/2" shaft.

Going to drive 3 miles to borrow one, but then I notice the 1/2" impact
drill from HF, still in its box. I've never used it, just bought it
in case. Lent it out once to the friend of a friend, but I hear it
didn't accomplsh much. (That doesn't mean the tool doesn't work. Might
have been the wrong tool for the job, or the wrong bit.)

Good to have extra tools around.

In alt.home.repair, on Thu, 23 Jul 2015 14:28:27 -0400, micky
wrote:

Harbor Frieght success. HF saves the day.

No point, just a story.

I have 3 drills, one I bought new at Sears in 1974
one that the guy at Black & Decker was going to
throw away because a customer didn't want to pay to fixi it. So I asked
for it right in front of the customer, and I fixed it in 30 minutes when
I got home, by putting a washer on the armature, so it didn't move back
and forth so mch, and
one that I found lying on a sidewalk in the city,
partly covered with greasy junk, maybe from incredibly dirty hands, just
covered in grease.

I also found in the trash some 1/2" keyless chucks and I put them on two
of the three drills.

So yesterday and today, I can only find one of the three drills, the one
with the small chuck, that won't hold a 5/8" bit with a 1/2" shaft.

Going to drive 3 miles to borrow one, but then I notice the 1/2" impact
drill from HF, still in its box. I've never used it, just bought it
in case. Lent it out once to the friend of a friend, but I hear it
didn't accomplsh much. (That doesn't mean the tool doesn't work. Might
have been the wrong tool for the job, or the wrong bit.)

Good to have extra tools around.

What I didn't expect, until I read the box this afternoon, was that the
drill was single-speed. I didnt 'think they made such drills anymore,
at least for homeowners.

So when I found the little hole coming out of the overhang, and went to
make it bigger, the drill ripped around probably making a bigger hole
than I wanted. Certainly the outermost layer, inclding the paint, was
bigger than I wanted but on the ladder with the hole above my head it wa
hard to judge.

On the inside through the plywood the drill was excellent.

I put the original long thin drill bit in the vinyl tube, so the
constanly curving vinyl tubing** would go straight down and I could find
the hole at the bottom of the overhang, maybe 8 inches down. And that
worlked fine on the first effort. I had planned to cut the end of
the tube off at an angle to make getting though that hole easier, but it
wasn't necessary.

When I went outside, the drill bit was still trapped in the tubing,
because the tendency of the tubing to curl up held the bit in place.


**I don't know if they make the tubing with a curve, or when they coil
it to prepare it for shipping and sale, that's what puts the curve in
it. But it seems to last forever.