Awl--
So my neighbor is cleaning out his garage, and ahm Mr. Popularity in my neighborhood now, with my long-bed pickup truck. So he's giving me all kinds of stuff, barbell weights (chrome plated!), beach chairs for my shop, tools, among them, a near-new Rotozip. By no means an RCM-type shop guy, even he dismissed it as junk, and indeed he was correct.
But what *inneresting junk it is*! Perhaps under the subtitle, Shoving it in so artfully you don't even feel it....
It comes in a big-assed injection-molded case, so poorly designed--despite its apparent sophistication--that after quite a time of tryna figger out just how to get all the parts to fit in this big-assed case, I found a more suitably sized and infinitely more practical and useful shoebox, dumped the 'zip and parts in, and was amazed at the shrinkage in sheer packaging volume.
To wit: The volume of the rotozip case calc'd out to 1,824 cubic inches. What makes that significant is that a full *cubic foot* is a mere 1,728 cu in. What makes this even more striking is that a 5 gal bucket of joint compound, paint, etc. is only 1,155 cubic inches.
So a cubic foot is no small volume.
The box I wound up putting the whole of the Rotozip kit in was 250 cu in, and could have easily fit in a better-proportioned 200 cu. in.
So lessee,
1800 divided by 200 is 9. Thus, the inflated the volume of this product by a factor of 9.Which is about the same factor by which the infomercial peeple inflated its usefulness.
This inflated-volume technique is widespread in Costco, Sears, Sam'sClub, HD, etc, where "509 piece kits" of whatever super tool is at hand, when all dumped in a paper bag, fit into a very small paper bag indeed. Yet the display is enormous, for artfully good reason. And which, even for a perenially PV'd cynic and semi-experienced shop rat as myself, are enticing and at times near-intoxicating.
I was more struck by some of the brilliant engineering that goes into this stuff, and into many near-useless consumer products, spanning the spectrum of consumption. I'm amazed by some perfume bottles. I wish I had the skill, talent, insight, and training to be able to manufacture on this level.
And yet, not only is brilliant engineering thrown down the toilet on uselessness, it also shoots itself in the foot with fatal flaws.
Which is really sort of ingenious as well, because these flaws are essentially moot: The product is near-useless, and 1 in one million will be used to the extent where these flaws will actually manifest. And, under real/normal usage, they are *guarownteeed* to manifest. This thing, and various parts thereof, is *guarownteeed* to break, or break off.
I was also struck by the sheer complexity of this item and all its klugey attachments. I got a near-$80,000 near-8,000 lb VMC in my garage (cnc milling machine), with four *very* thick looseleaf binders jammed with documentation, which took considerable effort to sufficiently digest so's I could actually use this machine.
I can tell you right now, having toyed with all crap in the rotozip kit, and having thumbed through all the disconnected and discombobulated paperwork in this rotozip kit, that it would take a *significant fraction of the time/energy/effort* it took me to get that goddamm VMC going (not counting the ordeal of pert-near burning it down), to get this rotozip going. A extraordinarily disproportionate fraction.
For a product--an oversized Dremel--whose sole purpose in this universe was to thin out our wallets. Considerable CorPirate board-room discussion went into this hustle, as well as all the other Informercial Hustles out there.
The only use I see for this over-hyped crap is as a grinder heftier than a Dremel, but not as hefty as a true die grinder.
Yeah, I imagine some hobbyist might be able to do sumpn with it, altho I can't really imagine what.
But here's the fundamental problem with all this ill-designed over-hyped crap:
When all the infomercial-ed choreography and contrived scenarios are over and done with, you are left with a ""tool"" that pretty much dictates to YOU what you can do with it, and how you can do it. It in fact dictates your whole goddamm *strategy* of hobby-ing. You are, imo, hamstrung with all its fragile peculiarities. IOW, you must adapt to the oddities of a supposed do-it-all tool, which will maybe indeed do it all, if you are adept at standing on your ears.
Visavis a tool that can *realistically* adapt to what you want it do. Like a goddamm drill. Or router. Or sawzall. Or even the crappiest jig/sabre saw. Etc.
Another piece of Merkin Sleight-of-Hand Marketing, but another reason to love this country.
All epitomized by the 9:1 inflation of its packaging volume.
The absolute apex of the Fleecing of Merka (short of the 100's of $$Billions that Bush/Cheney's Halliburton is raking in from Iraq) is Tony Little's fantasy fitness products, and Michael Thurmond's BluePrinting Yer body shit. Goodgawd.... but another post.