Old tools

[TMH]

My dad had a Stanley Bridges and I had a Wolf....

[michael adams]

Like NT you seem to be rather missing the point.

Speed is totally irrelevant.

Probably since the 1930's if not earlier there have been industrial single speed nut drivers and similar both air tools and electric with an adjustable pre-set torque setting. Once that optimum torque was reached - for that particular job/material the clutch disengaged.

Consumer level drills were never fitted with torque clutches - either single torque which have been a waste of time or variable. This feature only came in with professional level drill drivers and powered screwdrivers around the same time as electronic variable speed controls came in. Around

30 years ago-ish at a guess. At a price. Cheaper consumer level tools much later. Although I'm useless with recent chronolgy so won't argue about actual years and won't bother googling it

michael adams

...

[michael adams]

Like your new best friend NT, you seem to have become rather confused.

It was NT who was disparaging the post war generation, who in their thousands all bought and used Yankee screwdrivers, not me.

According to him they should all have been using electric drills instead. Like him.

When the disadvantages of this were pointed out to him i.e broken wrists, drills flying everywhere, stripped heads he then changed tack introducing the idea of using a "hand drill".

When challenged on this he then changed his mind again.

You two have so much in common you know; too much time on your hands, confused thinking, etc.etc. It really is uncanny

michael adams

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[tabbypurr]

So you who have no idea how to make it work still think you know better than 2 people that have done it aplenty. What an idiot.

NT

[tabbypurr]

Just in case anyone gets misled I did not say what he claims.

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

If by Yamkee you mean a ratchet, they were OK. For one or two screws

Well it worked if you had a lot of screws going into identical materials to do.

YOu soon got te feel of it.

Well those disadvantages are all in you fevered snowflake imagination

Oh dear. I was merely pointing out that you were talking bullshit. Drills - especially two speed drills with a low speed setting - were perfectly usable as screwdrivers if you had a lot to do.

For proper D-I-Yers.

I accept that you are not one of those, and need all the assistance health and safety glossy packaging and money can buy as its plain that broken wrists, drills flying everywhere, stripped heads etc are all things you have deep personal experience of when using a cordless screwdriver on the wrong setting

[The Natural Philosopher]

I only did it a few times, when I had a lot of screws to drive. It is a faff getting out the drill and fitting the screwdriver bit just for the odd one or two.

But building loudspeaker with about 16 screws in the back that all needed to go in an out to change a blown drive unit..well there it really saved time.

[tabbypurr]

mains drivers

than 2 people that have done it aplenty. What an idiot.

+1 to it being a big time saver. I've done it in recent time too on the odd occasion. Mains drills run about twice the speed of a cordless, handy if y ou've got lots of long screws to do. They also have loads more torque _at s peed_, way bigger motors, more so back when I had less good cordlesses.

I'm really glad I didn't grow up in the snowflake era. It would have been ' we're horrified that you brought a 1950s live chassis wotsit home and are t rying to fix it. What are you thinking! You're grounded forever!' 'OMG, you took the plug off?? Don't you know there's lethal electrickery in there?' Then years later 'how come you're a useless clueless idiot like us, how com e you learnt nothing about life? Didn't we meet your needs, support you, em power you etc etc'

NT

[newshound]

I had all those attachments, but with the original single speed drill. They were all awful, compared even to the cheapest modern stuff!

[newshound]

Not familiar with these exact ones, but I have a set of Bosch multi-material drills, they don't seem to have a separate brazed tungsten carbide tip, I assume they are some sort of fancy "superalloy" with even higher strength and hot-hardness than "normal" high speed steel.

I can confirm that they don't seem to mind brick or concrete, although out of habit I normally use conventional masonry drills.

[damduck-egg]

I have both ratchet plain screwdrivers and an inherited Yankee which I have not used for years. The Yankee is a spiral ratchet screwdriver and while the Yankee can be used as a plain ratchet screwdriver or a fixed one in the same way as a normal ratchet screwdriver if it is locked with the locking collar a plain ratchet screwdrivers cannot do what the Yankee does which is to convert a pumping push down the shaft action into a rotary turning of the bit action. The Yankee ( and its copiers) has a machined shaft for this which is very distinctive.

I think I stopped using mine because it doesn't have any bits for pozidrive, A quick google shows that 3rd party versions are available now so I may resurrect it.

In the right practiced hands a Yankee could be used at quite a fast pace . We are a couple of generations along now from people who were familiar with hand tools and how quick they could really be, now if it doesn't have motor of some kind whether mains , battery or petrol the snowflakes of today think a task cannot be done . In some circumstances an appropriate hand tool can be quicker,Only yesterday I watched somebody attacking a growth of stinging nettles and brambles with a strimmer with much noise and kerfuffle till they stopped about a 3rd of the way through to replace the line . While they did so I whipped through the other two thirds with a 100 year old long handled brushing hook maintained with a keen edge, main reason was I wanted to listen to the radio and not the racket.

G.Harman

[tabbypurr]

The pump action sped them up. But you just can't power drive slotted screws without the bit falling off repeatedly, and a manual screwdriver gives mor e control. For drilling, yankee drill bits were not great. Saying that I've got 2 very different types of yankee from different eras with completely d ifferent drill bits. Neither is good.

NT

[John Rumm]

ISTR my Makita 18V combi is made in the UK

[Andy Burns]

Not all my Makita tools says where they were made, the ones that do say "UK" are

belt sander orbital sander circular saw planer

[Dave Plowman (News)]

+1. For a start, most ran at a less than ideal speed.

I remember buying my first all in one jigsaw - a quite cheap B&D. Still have it somewhere. Performance was many times better than the attachment.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Which bits of it? ;-)

[robertstruthers1960]

This fifty-something 'snowflake' is all for motorisation. Bring it on. Although I'm not daft enough to use a strimmer on brambles.

[michael adams]

Right. So you drilled your hole, and stood there with your box of screws in your hand. So what was the next step ?

Silly question your Black and Decker screwdriver bits.

Can't find them ?

No problem. It's down off to the tool shop.

"Hello I'd like some screwdriver bits for my B&D drill."

Sorry sir there's no such thing. The lowest speed on a 2 spd B&D drill is

900 r.p.m that's 15 rps, a recipe for broken wrists and insurance claims if ever there was one. Nobody's so silly as to supply such a thing. If you want to drive screws then you need one of those - points to display - "Screwdrivers". The clue is sort of in the name. In any case I remember all the aggravation when your Mother found out about us selling you the electric drill."

" Maybe in 20 or 30 years time when they develop drill drivers with torque clutches they'll start supplying screwdriver bits which will fit your electric drill. But until then no, I'm afraid.

But never mind, in 30 years time you'll be able to lie through your teeth about being able to use your drill as a screwdriver as no one will realise there were no screwdeiver bits available at the time. And maybe fellow idiots and liars such as NT will agree with you and claim they did it too ! "

Whereas in all eras, the ability to effectively lie through your teeth, and make stuff up, depends crucially on getting all the small details sorted out beforehand.

michael adams

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[Dave Plowman (News)]

Really? I have a B&D drill with electronic speed control. Goes just as slow as a cordless drill.

[michael adams]

michael adams