Ryobi's 18V Mini Cut-Off Tool revisited

[leehljp]

https://www.homedepot.com/p/RYOBI-ON...W601/320051086

I mentioned the Ryobi 18V Cut-off tool (3 inch discs) a couple or three years ago and today I had to use it for a couple of hours. I needed to change the disk and looked for the Allen wrench. It wasn't in it. But I had my HF sets of T-Allen wrenches. Then I needed to lock the head to take the used disk off and put a new one on. OK, where is the lock. Oh, here is is by the trigger. Nope that wasn't it. OH, it's on top. . . . So what is the switch by the trigger?

After switching disks, I pushed the button by the trigger and it reversed the direction of the disk. Wow. No matter which way I hold it, simply pushing the button and keep the sparks from shooting out at me. I didn't notice that until today.

[capncarl]

Disable the button. Only in the rare occasion could I ever seen running a die grinder in reverse, that would be when you couldn’t get the tool in the best cutting position. I’ve never had that happen. Super glue gel should do the job.

what was your opinion of this grinder?

[leehljp]

This little cut-odd tool is great for the one that does not need one for heavy duty jobs. There are a lot of jobs where this will not work, but the occasional and light weight cutting nails or screws sticking through boards, or a few inches of sheet metal, or 3 or 4 quarter inch bolts, it works well. My Egg-like smoker had one of the rollers go bad. I made a 24" square rectangle out of 2" angle iron (welded the four pieces) and attached four 4" casters to it and put the smoker without its castors into the rectangle. With good welding, it was easy to flatten the angle iron rectangle's welds at the joints so that the new castors fit flat.

The little cut-off tool did fine. An angle grinder would have saved me 5 minutes or so but the 3 inch disks got into the inside of the angle iron joints much better than a 5" grinder would have. It made for the Egg smoker's support frame to fit flush inside the rectangle.

As to the switch- I like it. push it and it reverses the direction and keeps the grinding sparks shooting away from me - depending on which way I was holding the cut-off tool at the moment.