In today's Blog, we're talking about power tools as sort of a follow-up to a blog I made a couple of weeks ago where I talked about my favorite hand tools. This blog is about my 10 favorite power tools. Now, obviously, the tools I'm using will vary from project to project, depending on what I need to do.
But these are my 10 favorite power tools that I use most often when building stuff in this workshop for this challenge. So let's jump right into it and get started.
Starting off with the first of all, this tool.
1 18 brushless default drill
I use almost every single project, a battery power drill. This was one of the very first tools that ever bought, not this particular one, but one very much like it. This particular one is an 18 brushless default drill. I don't really think it matters which brand you get, but battery power is a must super handy for drilling holes or squirting stuff together, which, let's face it, you end up doing a lot when you're building stuff.
This one is super beating up. I actually bought this thing use, which I think is a good tip. If you're on a budget, when you're buying tools, I guess depending on where you live, you can often find really good deals for people selling these with batteries and chargers included for much less than you would be able to buy them for when you're buying them new in the store. Obviously, it's a little bit more risky. Buying used to this one was super beat up when I got it and it still works great.
Haven't had any problems with it.
2 Track Saw
All right. Moving on to number two and my pick for a second. The most useful tool is going to be a track saw. Now, obviously, which tools are going to be useful are depending on what you're building. But if you're like me building stuff out of wood, making furniture, that process very often starts with a sheet of plywood or MDF. And you need some way of precisely cutting that into pieces, which I think a track is the best option.
Now, obviously, it's super nice to have a table saw, but that's a much bigger investment both in space and money. I'll actually build pretty big projects using exclusively this track star to cut out all the pieces.
You can get away with a cheaper circular saw that doesn't have the punch feature and the track.
This makes your life much easier because it's very easy to line up to track and then put yourself on the track, punch down to the set depth and it turns out really nice. I really like this bar just because I think the track system itself is much better than the other brands. The song itself. I don't think it matters too much which brand you get, but this one is fairly reasonably priced and the track system is really nice because it's super easy to lock together individual pieces of track and yeah, it just works really well.
3 Sander
Moving on to number three, which is going to be a center now. Chances are if you're building furniture and you want any sort of finish, you're going to be doing a whole lot of sending. So Sander is definitely up there on the list. I honestly think that this is the world's best Sander.
I'm obviously not paid by neither America nor any of the other companies here. This is just my honest opinion. It's super light, it's brushless. It has a fantastic dust collection. It is a little bit pricey, but I think it's worth it. However, if you're just getting started, there's absolutely no need to get one of these. Just get a cheap, random, or Wilson Center from any of the other companies and it will save you a ton of time and sending your projects going on.
4 Table Saw
Next up, my dinosaur. Now, this thing is going to be super useful if you want to cut strips of wood, especially if you're working with, like construction lumber. We need to cut pieces of wood to the right length. And with this guy, cutting angle cuts or even compound angles is relatively easy.
It's actually often much easier to do complicated angles with this one than it would be on, let's say, a table saw.
And although you can get away with doing most of those cuts with a track, so this tool is just much, much better at it. They really have their own specialties. So a combination of the tracks and this one will get you really, really far. Let's have a look at the next one.
5 Screw Driver
And although very similar to the drill, that impact driver definitely deserves his own spot on this list. Now, if you have to choose between the drill and the impact driver, obviously get the drill. It's way more versatile. But a combination of those two is really, really powerful. It's really great for driving screws. I basically just use this as my screwdriver. I also use it when driving in bigger screws and tougher materials where I need a lot of power.
And although this guy has a ton of power, you can usually control that pretty well with the trigger. So you can screw the screws into small pieces of furniture without damaging them.
Now, I usually have my drill equipped with a drill bit and my driver with talks a long bit, both of which I talked about in my last blog, which you can check out. Just makes it super convenient because I don't have to change bits in between drilling and screams cruise. Now, you may also notice that on both of these I have the smallest to empower batteries. That is just to save weight. I mostly work and it works up here and easy access to a charger.
So I find it really pointless to have a massive battery on there just to save a little bit of inconvenience of having to change one of these in, like every other day or something like that.
Now, talking about batteries, you may have noticed that some tools are battery powered and some of my tools are connected with the cable. Now, my thinking is that if a tool generates a lot of dust to the point where I anyway need to hook up a dust extractor, I might as well have the extra power cable as well that just makes sure that the tool never runs out of power. It's not really that much more inconvenient since I have this big hose anyways.
6 Vacuum Cleaner
Which leads me to the next tool on the list, a vacuum cleaner. Now although this thing is probably the least sexy tool on this list, like no one ever wants to go out and buy a really nice vacuum cleaner. This guy is super useful. And the one thing that makes this really useful is the ability to plug your tool right into the vacuum cleaner. And then it starts as soon as you turn on the tool at your desk. The track saw the sender the miter saw doesn't matter that way.
The vacuum cleaner always turns on. When you're using a tool that generates dust, you save yourself for a lot of clean-up after effects. It's just much nicer to work in an environment that isn't full of dust and talking about tools that generate a ton of dust. Moving on to the next one.
7 Biscuit Jointer
Next up, that biscuit jointer now other than being really good at generating a ton of dust. This guy is really great for joining sheet goods really easily and really precisely together.
It does so by cutting small grooves using this blade. You can insert these little biscuits or cookies like I like to call them, told everything nicely in place, and make sure that nothing shifts while you either clamp or screw everything together. I sometimes refer to this thing as a machine. This particular one isn't technically a machine. It's made by Makita. I'm just so used to calling it a lamella machine because that's what I used to work with. It's kind of like calling paper tissues Kleenex, but luckily the patent on the original Swiss-made machine is expired.
That's why all the other companies also are making one of these machines. Now, I actually think that the Mikita one, although much cheaper, is better than the original lamella, one I very often end up using this guy or more fancy machines like the climax that I also own.
A big part of the reason is that these biscuits are just super inexpensive compared to a lot of the other things like climax or Domino, for instance. All right. Next one.
8 Dewalt Router
I router can be super useful. I use it a lot to just make nice small emphasis on the edge of, let's say, tables or forefronts.
What it's also super useful is following templates to make exact copies of products. I actually did this for the drawer handles for both this worktable and for my assortment cabinet where I use 3D printed guides and a router to reroute the pockets for all of those drawers handles.
You can also use the same principle if you would stick that onto a thicker piece of wood and then use the same router with the Followill attachment to make precise copies of the template. Now this particular one is just as small as the rubber, and to be quite honest, I don't really like it. The locking mechanism here is super flimsy and has broken multiple times and the shank it uses is much smaller than the standard shank that most other tools used.
9 Jigsaw
The next tool is a jigsaw. This thing is super useful both to cut out intricate shapes as well as cutting out holes in the middle of a sheet of wood, both features that are really useful now. Jigsaw, a lot of people don't really like these because they don't really feel like they can get the result they want.
They can be a little bit tricky to work with, but I feel like I proved that they can be used to great effect when making this entire chair using only a jigsaw and a drill.
10 18 Gauge Brad Nailer
Moving on to the very last tool on the list and to finish off today's list of the ten most useful tools, in my opinion, is that Brad Nailor, this one is battery powered.
0 comments: