What I don’t know about power tools
There is supposed to be a time as young men grow into adulthood when the ancient tribal secrets of power tools are passed down from the village elders to the next generation, probably during a primal jungle ceremony, or deep in the remote outback desert, gathered in a circle around a sacred fire, and a young man receives his first circular saw from a grizzled shaman missing at least one finger.
I never actually got to go to that ceremony as a teen, unfortunately. I was too busy squandering a fortune in quarters on Bezerk, Defender, Galaxian and Missile Command. By the time I had left the house, I was in for years of apartment living, often with roommates, and there was never really time to put in that table saw in the dining room, even though it would have been a great pizza cutter.
So now I find myself with a garage, a toolbench (I believe there is one under all the boxes) and this weekend I find myself heading over to a friend’s office to pick up a couple of free computer desks that would be great for the two geeklings. Skip ahead to the point where power tools comes in: We’ve wrestled these desks on the pickup truck, off the pickup truck and into the house. The desks are very heavy due to being made out of kitchen countertop particleboard with white finish layer on the surface. Then we find that these things are exactly half an inch too big to get through the kid’s doors no matter which way you turn them. The simplest solution, after looking at the desk design, is to cut about 4 inches straight off the back of each one. This should be no trouble–if I had a saw.
The simple solution that any ignorant fool would know is that a circular saw is the right thing to get here. A reasonable facsimile of one can be had for $30 to start, and probably $60 or $80 for one of reasonable quality.
But like Jack heading to town to sell the cow and coming back with magic beans, I’m in the power tool section of Home Depot, I recall an infomercial from years ago for a thing called Rotozip, which looks like a drill but is supposed to cut like a saw, and on the TV, it was like there wasn’t ANY job this thing couldn’t handle. Professional contractors are leaving piles of now-obsolete power tools abandoned on the sidewalk, and they arrive on jobsites with nothing more than a Rotozip slung on their belt. It is the amazing Swiss-Army wonder tool of the future.
So I am thinking that this multiple purpose tool would be a wiser investment than what seemed to me the more limited use circular saw, I come home with the magic beans in the form of the Rotozip rotary saw. I open it, I read the directions, and fire it up and prepare to slice off a couple inches off the back of these desks like a hot knife through butter.
Uh… dull knife, through tough leather, maybe. It did cut the particleboard, but very slowly, under noisy protest, and not without breaking a bit. The line was all over the place (the straight-edge attachment pictured on the side of the box was an optional accessory, not included). Mrs. Alex just looked on disapprovingly, suggesting I just get a handsaw and cut it.
Based on the principle of nothing is ever as easy as it looks, it took a long time, but I finally finished was trying to do. In the time-honored tradition of shoot first and ask questions later, I started to do some research online, and that is when I learned that a circular saw really would have been the best tool for this job. I have included the links below for anyone else who would like to know what the difference between a miter saw and router is but is afraid to ask.
Now to be fair to the fine people at Bosch who make and sell the Rotozip, there is nothing wrong with this tool. It was clearly the wrong tool for this particular job, but there are a lot of other tasks that Rotozip handles just fine. It has a nice metal cutting wheel attachment that will finally allow me to finish my long-delayed MacQuarium project, and word is in the contracting biz it really shines in doing cutouts in drywall.
About.com’s Seven Powertools Everyone should own
Fine Woodworking Magazine’s Guide to Power Tools:
Lowe’s Home Improvement Guide to Power Tools
Permalink | Trackback | del.icio.us Digg Reddit
Comments:
Leave a comment
[…] Original post by Mr. Alex […]
[…] In a previous post, I plumbed the depth of my ignorance about power tools. I am trying to make amends, and I have begun the long slow road of learning the basics and investing carefully in the precious metals come from Bosch, DeWalt, and Craftsman. […]