Tools- That "Ah HA" moment.

[BigguyZ]

Yes, my two impact drivers (a 14.4 DeWalt and 12 volt right-angle Ridgid) are what I reach for first and second. Terrific. But then there was...

- the first time I used a cordless drill 3 stories up on scaffolding instead of running 100 feet of heavy extension cord along behind me. Aha! What a difference. Must have been about 1999. Now I only use my old Milwaukee for mixing paint or mud or 3" holes.

- the first time I ever used an excel spreadsheet tool to update about 3 dozen linked cells into one big revised calculation. It saved what felt like 8 hours of work and endless double-checking of my feeble math on a calculator. Sometime in the mid-1980's I'd guess.

Dusty&Lefty

Wow, I guess those are things I take for granted. You're old!

[LCHIEN]

Impact driver certainly has been top of the lists here.
Most people who haven't used one don't know why its its such an AHA! tool.

With a hand ratchet/screwdriver/wrench you have to supply the torque to turn a bolt or lag screw. with screwdriver or wrench you have to supply rotary motion, with a ratchet you still have to provide a back and forth motion, the activity can leave you with sore muscles if you have a number of tight (long, large, deep lag screws for instance)
With a drill driver the tool supplies the rotating or reciprocating torque but you still have to provide the reaction torque to hold that thing in place, when it hits bottom it may want to tear your arm off. You can still get very tired from provideing the static reaction torque.
With the impact driver, the thing just spins when there's no torque so it makes up a free-spinning bolt and nut real fast, but when resistance is encountered, it switches to a mode where a small hammer rotates the bit in a series of fast pulses. The reation torque individually is small and is absorbed by the mass of the tool so you hardly feel anything. Yet the shear number and rapid repititions will drive the screw or nut home with a lot of total torque applied. you can still get tired, but in this case, its only from the weight of the impact driver, which usually weigh about the same or a bit less than the equivalent drill driver.

They have a 1/4" hex socket to receive of the the hex bits commonly found (with the locking groove option) or adapters that allow square drive sockets to be used.
They work real well with phillips, Robertson, allen or torx, in particular the phillips screws seem resistant to camming out which saves rounding off the heads.

if you are putting together a
1. Deck with a lot of lag screws
2. tool stand with a lot of nuts and bolts
3. lumber rack, work bench, picnic table etc with a lot of fasteners in the 1/4" to 5/16th shank sizes
4. anything with a lot tightly torqued phillips screws.

If your are driving lag screws into wood, use a flat washer under the head... the tool will drive the head sans washer into the wood if you are not careful, so far that the head gets buried and you can't back it out.

just for reference, heres the set I have, you can look at both specs for the differences.
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1...+driver+impact

[BigguyZ]

I think the Sear's cordless tools are made by the same company that makes Ryobi. Just for your reference. Now that Ryobi is going LI, you can get their huge tool packs for a VERY good price.

[rnelson0]

I don't have an impact driver, but I know what they're for. Same with table saw, router, all that stuff.

The biggest "a-ha" moment for me was buying a $11 tool belt with a $10 gift card. I always looked at the tool belts when I walked past them, but couldn't justify the $30 or $40 leather belts or even the $15 cloth ones in my mind - usually cause I had another $50-100 of stuff on the cart already. But $1? Sure, why not.

My God, what a difference it makes. Just the simplicity of having a tape measure and pencil available at all times, plus whatever other crap you can cram in there...wow. It was the first time I can honestly say I thought, "Why didn't I get one of these years ago?" and not have a good answer.

An expensive tool you have a good answer to - I couldn't afford it. A $15 cloth tool belt? WTF was I thinking? It's saved me a ton of effort just in looking for where I left the screwdriver, not to mention holding nails and screws, an assortment of tools for whatever job I'm doing around the house, etc. The biggest thing for me now is remembering to put the tool back into the belt instead of laying it down on the floor, table, or other hard surface I'm sure to walk away from by the time I need it again.

[rja]

When I do craft shows I nail up some of my stuff on knotty pine tongue and groove panels. You can sort-of see the panels on my home page at www.rjablacksmith.com. I was always misplacing my hammer and that little plastic bucket of nails until it occurred to me that I could save considerable time by buying a carpenters pouch that goes around the waist and holds nails and screws and a leather hammer loop that goes on your belt and has a metal hoop for your hammer.