Tool Review - Panasonic Cordless Drill/Driver

When Dana and I got married, our tool boxes got married as well. We suddenly had duplicates of several things I'd purchased for myself and then helped her pick out for her own house. So when the battery charger on one of our two Craftsman 18v drills burned out, it wasn't that big of a deal; we had another handy. And after two of the four batteries started holding a charge for less than a week and/or only 10 minutes worth of use, it was OK because we had two more to fall back on.

Late last fall, at just about the same time, the other two batteries started failing and the second charger died. It was time to re-assess our drill/driver situation.

Let's be honest - most of my drill/driver work involves hanging curtain rods, screwing in drywall, building jigs, and general home maintenance and repair. In retrospect, 18 volts is a whole lot of wasted power.It's also a whole lot of weight to lug around.

I did my research and read all of the reviews. I made an honest assessment of what we needed around the house and for use in a hobby woodworking shop. With everything taken into consideration, I finally decided upon the Panasonic 12-Volt NiMH 1/2" drill/driver.

I could not be happier with my choice!

When the drill arrived (from Amazon, for about $190 with free shipping), I immediately charged both batteries. I then put the charger and the spare battery back in the case and left the drill out on my workbench.

Over the next six months, I would pull it out for anything from hanging curtain rods to installing new hinges, from drilling 3/8" holes in wood to driving 100+ drywall screws. Just the other day, while working in the new workshop to tighten up the last of the drywall, I finally killed the first charge on my first battery. I wasn't so impressed with the amount of work the battery had performed as I was with the amount of time it held the charge! My last drill wouldn't hold a charge for five weeks, much less five months!

I pulled the dead battery out and popped the new one in and went right back to work with the second battery as fresh as the day it was charged.

I was also impressed with the weight of the drill. Most of the screws I was driving were in the ceiling, so I ended up holding it above my head for extended periods of time. That's when the 3.5 lb weight difference between the Panasonic and my old Craftsman really came into play. Even after an hour of work, I was far from fatigued.

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change my decision to go with the 12-volt model (vs. the 15.6- or the 18-volt models), either. It is more than enough power for the likes of what I do and the lighter weight is a nice change.

So if you find yourself in the market for a new drill in the near future, the Panasonic 12-volt NiMH 1/2" drill/driver comes highly recommended from this amateur woodworker and average DIY-enthusiast.

My New Shop, Episode 4: Purple Walls, Drywall, And Dry Skin

Last Saturday, my little brother, Noah, came up for about six or seven hours to help me get some drywall hung in the new workshop. We didn't exactly get it completely done, but we were able to get it to a point where I could finish up the rest with little assistance.

I'd talked to my older brother the night before and he recommended I run some speaker wire before we hang drywall. I do enjoy the swish of a hand plane playing harmony to Jerry's melodious vocals, so I stopped by a Radio Shack and picked up 100' of wire. It would have taken me two minutes but for the two salesmen and five sales pitches I had to fend off.

No, I hadn't thought about speakers yet; I don't even have drywall hung. Yes, I would consider coming back in to look at what they had when I was ready. No, I'm not interested in gold-plated extra-insulated 12-gauge Monster wire that really helps carry all of the sound, from the low base to the highest trebs, and provides me with the best quality music. I'm not an audio-phile; I just want to listen to some music when I'm in the shop for Pete's sake. No, I don't want to buy my male- and female-adaptors yet. Remember, I don't know what speakers I'm going to get. No, I'm not... You know what? Ask me one more question and I'm not even going to buy the damn speaker wire!

Sheesh.

Anyway, we started by taking measurements and figuring out how many pieces of drywall we would need. To try and aid in sound reduction, I wanted to use 5/8" drywall on the ceiling. To make it so we didn't have to lug 20 sheets of 5/8" drywall into the basement, and because it matched the thickness of the drywall used on the other framed wall in the room, I went with 1/2" drywall for the new wall.

And thank goodness for that. After hauling 13 sheets of the heavy stuff down some difficult stairs (I don't have a walk-out basement), I was ready to call it quits for the day! But Noah smartly suggested we hold off on bringing down the last few pieces until we saw how much we really needed and leave the four sheets of 1/2" drywall up in the garage, as well. With a right arm that felt like Jello, I was in complete agreement.

While Noah started taking measurements on the first piece, to account for an outlet hole and to mark joist lines, I hung speaker wire in what I refer to as the bulk heads. You can see the blue painter's tape holding the wire in first and second photos.

Once I had the wire run, it seemed like things moved along pretty quickly. After a few hours, we had all of the flat part of the ceiling done. Another hour saw the I-beam and the duct work boxed in. Thank goodness we didn't bring those last few pieces of 5/8" drywall down because we ended up not needing them. What's more, the amount of drywall waste we had set aside at that point was pretty minimal - less than a full sheet, all laid out side by side, I'd say.

Then we began working on the inside wall. After we finished the right side, having used part of two full sheets of 1/2" drywall, I asked Noah if he was sure we'd picked up enough.

He said, "Yes."

I queried, "For both sides of the wall?"

*silence*

So later on, after we'd finished the inside wall, we went back to Home Depot to return the remaining sheets of 5/8" and pick up another four sheets of 1/2". By that time, it was getting a little late and I knew his knees were starting to bother him, so we just unloaded the drywall into the garage and called it a day.

I finally got downstairs after church this morning to shoot a couple of pictures (now that the camera is back home). I generally avoid using the flash, because it always seems to cause glare, but it was either that or hang some lights I'd have to take back down before the room could be taped and mudded, so I thought I would give it a try. They turned out pretty good!

Before I start getting bids on the taping and mudding, I need to finish up a few things, as you can see. Some of the drywall already hanging doesn't have enough screws in it, so I have to go through and make sure each piece is secured well enough. Then I have to insulate the new wall and the wall shared by the other room before I close it up with the remaining drywall.

Once that's done, I'll be able to have someone come down and tape and mud my joints.

After that, it's priming and painting and no more purple walls!

Saturday night, after Noah had left and I'd cleaned up a bit in the basement, I sat down and took off my work goves to rub my sore fingers. After a bit, I looked down at my hands to see large bits of skin had come off with the slight friction I was making! Then I remembered I'd been working with drywall (i.e. gypsum) all day. I wonder if it was just a form of dermatitis resulting from the talc-like drywall dust... A good dose of hand cream seemed to bring them back to normal, so I'm not worried. I mean, it isn't like I'm shedding skin and starting to speak in Parseltongue, right?

My next two immediate goals are to finish hanging the drywall and find someone to mud and tape for me. In case the latter takes a bit of time to find, schedule, and complete, I have one or two little projects I'd put on hold during shop renovations. Maybe I'll dig them out and try to finish them up in the make-shift shop to pass the time. I also wanted to write a review on a tool I've been using the heck out of during shop construction.

Slight Shop Update Delay...

My younger brother and I did get most of the drywall hung on Saturday. In the process of doing so, however, we had to remove all light sources but the can lights. As a result, I was unable to take proper pictures of the room. So I need to hang some lights or figure out a lighting source before I can photograph the progress.

Yesterday afternoon, my wife flew to Colorado for work. She knew she was only going to be busy part of the time, so she took the camera with her in case they got to do some site seeing.

Now, even if I get the shop re-lit and swept up, I can't take pictures.

So there will be a slight hiccup of a few days to my shop update blog entry.

Not a bad thing, really, as it gives me time to finish hanging a small piece of drywall on the ceiling, add a few more drywall screws where necessary, insulate my new wall, hang drywall on the outside of it, sweep up the floor a little better, and then come up with a catchy blog title for the next entry!

On a side note, I noticed today that I've made the Woodworking Magazine Blog Roll!

As long as I have a purple shop, I might as well be giddy...

My New Shop, Episode 3: Now It's Purple And Fluffy...

With a box to make, projects around the house, work, bird watching, and a whole lot of other things to keep me busy, I haven't been able to get back to working on the new workshop until this evening.

When we last left the shop, it was framed in and the electrical had been run for power and lights. It was ready for insulation. Earlier this week, I started looking for some because I had to put it in before my little brother helps me with the drywall this weekend. Turns out it was more difficult to find than I thought it would be...

Earlier this year, we had additional insulation blown into our attic spaces to try and cut a little more off of our cooling and heating costs. My wife, who works in the environmental field, was concerned about VOC's off-gassing from the formaldehyde used as a binder in most fiberglass insulation. After a few months of searching, we finally found a company who uses formaldehyde-free fiberglass insulation. Turns out their bid was very competitive, as well, so we went with them.

(Our budget billing has already dropped $10/month since then, by the way.)

After spending that much time and energy in putting a healthy insulation product into our attics, I thought it would be very silly to put regular fiberglass insulation in the basement (where the VOC's could rise through the rest of the house). So I started looking for any local companies who sold formaldehyde-free fiberglass insulation batting. After several hours of searching on-line, I finally found a company who specializes in the product, but they weren't exactly "local".

The brand name of the product I'm using is Johns Manville. They actively make and market insulation products that are better for your home environment. Unfortunately, there are only three places within fifty miles of my house that carried their products. The first one I called said they hadn't carried JM products in two years. One of the other two places was over in Illinois - not someplace I'd be going soon. That left Washington Lumber Supply in my home town of Washington, MO.

Having grown up there, I knew the store hours. It left me in a bit of a quandary, because I knew there was no way I could make it from work to the store before closing time.

Then I remembered I had two brothers still living in Washington.

(Duh.)

So I called my older brother and asked him if he could pick it up for me if I paid for it over the phone. He agreed. I called the store and placed my order.

The next day I drove down to my brother's house to pick up the insulation. In the process, I found out exactly how many bags of insulation I could fit in my Xterra and still see out the passenger-side window. (The answer is six, in case you are wondering; three bags of R19 and three bags of R13.)

It was a quiet ride home.

This evening, I went downstairs, sealed all of my duct work seams with HVAC foil tape, and installed the insulation.

It was hot and itchy and I had flashbacks of helping my brother finish his entire basement most of the time I was working on it. I was able to finish the ceiling in under two hours.

It had nothing to do with my calculations, but three bags of R-19 was just about the exact amount I needed. I was left with a total of four feet of ceiling still needing a little insulation by the time I'd finished.

Now my workshop is purple and fluffy. Not exactly the manly space I was looking for... I can't wait for this to be finished!

Well, I can't wait until I can paint those stupid walls, anyway.

I'm not going to insulate the newly-framed wall until we get drywall up on the inside, but I will insulate the areas around the steel I-beams and any other gaps in the ceiling before we close it up. I also picked up enough to insulate the only other interior wall (on the right in the first photo). I will do that from the other side before I hang some better quality peg board in the other room.

In the second picture, you can see the fluffy white insulation juxtaposed with the fluffy black Baby Teeters.

She spent a lot of time with me this evening. I don't know if she was more interested in what I was doing or in the Paul Simon CD I was playing. She gave us both a fair amount of attention. She is a wonderfully curious cat and managed to pick up one of the only bits of insulation I didn't sweep up. She doesn't photograph well from a distance in poor light, so you can barely see it on her chest...

This Saturday is the annual local plant sale sponsored by the Missouri Botanical Gardens via the Shaw Nature Reserve; Dana and I are going to go to that early in the morning. We will get back home before noon to meet up with my younger brother so we can hang some drywall.

Hopefully I'll have another shop update for you by Sunday!

Hand Plane Class, Part Two...

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I signed up for the Hand Plane class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. I knew quite a bit of it would be lecture and discussion, and I was fine with that, but I also wanted to actually use the hand planes I'd brought and get any advice or tips I could from Chris Schwarz or Tom Lie-Nielsen.

I wasn't disappointed; in fact, it was more hands-on than I thought it would be. We started off with a discussion on sharpening and then went back to our benches to sharpen our plane blades. Then we had a discussion on setting up our planes and went back to our benches to set them up. Chris pointed to two stacks of wood. He said the stack on the left was for practice but not to take any wood from the other pile as that would be used for a contest on the second day. I grabbed a piece from the first stack and started planing.

Towards the end of the first day, I'd already sharpened my blades and was tired of planing wood, so I pulled out the Record 043 Plough Plane I'd also brought along and worked on its 1/4" blade. Using our new sharpening techniques (flatten the face to 1000 grit and then use the ruler trick to take the very edge of the face to 8000 grit; honing the secondary bevel of 30 degrees on a primary bevel of 25 degrees), it didn't take me long at all to get a nice sharp edge on it. I then grabbed the board Alex and I had been practicing with and spent less than two minutes ploughing a groove.

A little later, I brought it up to Chris to see what he thought of the plane. He promptly ploughed another groove into a piece of oak and gave it a passing stamp. The only suggestion he offered was to add a wooden fence to it that would make it longer and help it glide along the edge of the board better. I have several pieces of lignum vitae set aside for just that purpose.

On the morning of the second day, we had a discussion on putting a camber on plane blades and then we once again went back to our benches to actually camber the blades of our planes. Using my Mark II, without the camber roller, I couldn't get a good one on my blade, so I had to borrow Alex's blade guide. Fortunately for both of us, Alex apparently cambered his blades the day before, so he didn't need to use the guide. Since I already have the Mark II, I'll probably contact Lee Valley within the next week or so to order the camber roller.

Before lunch on day two, Chris announced the "Flattest Board Contest of 2009" would take place after a brief discussion right after lunch. I left my bench to go to lunch, thinking I would be lucky if I could get one face flat, much less all four faces flat and square. Winning the contest never occurred to me as a possibility.

Something else that never occurred to me was to go back to the classroom early and pick through the pile of boards to find one that would be easier to plane. I think a few others might have had this idea, however, as a third of the pile of boards was relocated to various benches in the classroom by the time lunch was over.

While Chris spoke to us about using the camber when planing edges, Jeff (one of the staff members at MASW) passed out the contest wood to the people who didn't already have it. At first glance, my board didn't look too bad. I turned it over to find a fairly nasty knot and knew my chances of winning just got smaller. But I checked for cup and grabbed my #5 and started at the high spots.

After less than a minute, the high spots were pretty much gone! I checked it with a square and it was about as flat as I thought I was going to get it. I switched over to the #604 1/2 and started smoothing the first face. And that was when the magic of a cambered blade hit me! I could take off a pencil line with just a swipe of the plane! After the first face was done, I worked on the first edge. It was even easier. I checked for square and found one side just a little high. I adjusted the position of my plane to put the biggest part of the camber on the high spot. Two passes later, it was dead flat and square to the first face. I repeated those steps on the second edge and then flipped the board to the second face - the one with the knot.

It really wasn't that bad. After a few minutes, I took the board up to Chris to check. He marked one edge with a smiley face (meaning it was good), made a few minor pencil marks on the other edge and on both faces. Mostly it was just the removal of a minor ridge - really, just taking off the pencil line. He said if he was going to use the board for a project that it would have been good enough at that point, but this was a contest about perfection, so he wanted me to work on it a little more.

I took off the lines with just a few passes, squared up the second edge at one point that had a ridge and brought it back up for another check. The other edge and one of the faces got OK'd. I looked around and saw everyone else feverishly planing away, many on the first face or edge. That was when it hit me that I might actually have a good chance of winning the contest!

I quickly walked back to my bench and clamped the board back down to work on two small lines on the knotty face. I then popped the board back off the bench and ran up front. After a minute of careful scruteny, I got my fourth smiley face!

The board in the picture here might not look like much to most people, but it means a whole lot to me. So much, in fact, that I took the board home (how could I leave it?). I'd like to do something with it rather than just toss it in the trash or a burn pile. I was thinking about making a box for my Record 043 plough plane and using resawn pieces of this board for panels in the lid and bottom.

Another cool thing - if you hold the board up at the right angle, you can see a reflection in it. That is what you can do with a hand-planed surface. Try doing that with a board after 180 grit or fresh off the jointer!

Later that afternoon, Thomas Lie-Nielsen talked us through a video tour of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks. He fielded questions and discussed the creation process a plane goes through. He also talked about the quality assurance they apply to each piece. Did I mention he gave everyone a free plane? It was small and made of balsa wood and flies around the room...

Key things I took from the class:

• The flat side of a plane blade is called the face (by Chris) and the back (by Tom).
• All the sharpening systems work. Pick a system and stick with it for a year or two until you are proficient with it. You will notice your sharpening skills improve greatly over time.
• Don't use a fine grit diamond stone to flatten water stones! The water stone will weaken the bond of the diamonds to the plate, destroying your stone. 220 grit diamond stones use a different bonding agent and are safe to use.
• Camber all your plane blades. The plane you use for roughing gets an 8 degree camber; the joining plane gets a camber of about .007 to .005 of an inch; the smoothing plane gets a camber of about .002 of an inch.
• It is a good idea to even camber your block plane blades.
• You can plane an edge square with a cambered blade!
• You can determine grain direction by either looking at the edge or by using the face and the endgrain (looking for peaks and whether you were on the bark side or the heart side).
• Sharpening a scraper is similar to sharpening a plane blade in that you have to polish the faces and the edges first.
• Keep your planes clean; wipe it down after every planing session.
• Most importantly, and kind of as a summation of the whole class, I learned how to flatten and square a board!

New vocabulary I learned from Chris:

• Bockity - Irish for "bad"
• Sticktion - when two surfaces stick together (as in the thin ruler sticking to the sharpening stone)
• Sneck - the tab on the end of a plow plane blade, used to adjust the blade by tapping it.

This was a most enjoyable class and certainly worth the price of admission. If you've never used hand planes before and are tired of the ear protection and dust left behind by your planer, jointer, and sanders, you might want to consider signing up the next time it is offered. Even if you think you know a bit about planes, this class might still be able to teach you a few things.

And if things go well, and luck shines on you, maybe you, too, can get the nod of approval from one of the great active woodworkers in the business. It's a feeling that doesn't quickly fade.

Hand Plane Class, Part One...

On Friday afternoon, my friend, Alex, and I left the greater St. Charles area for a weekend visit to the Marc Adams school of Woodworking in Franklin, Ind. I'm afraid I'm too tired to go into very much detail at the moment, but I did want to tempt you with the following photo...

It is a picture taken of the inside cover of my new book, Hand Tool Essentials, with a special note by Chris Schwarz. The book was my prize for, I'll so humbly say, a job well done in the contest our class had on the last day. The goal was to take a small board and make it as perfectly square and flat on four sides as we possibly could (the two ends were excluded as we only had one shooting board for the entire class to use) using only hand planes.

I must offer the most sincere thanks to my #604 1/2, a wonderful user plane I picked up for a mere $45, and my trusty #5, the first hand plane I ever purchased. Oh, and thanks again to Alex for driving!

It felt sooo good to leave that class knowing I'd picked up enough tips and knowledge and skill to do such a thing all by my very lonesome! On the way home, my little brain was taking a mental inventory of all the small boards I've collected over the years that are just too small to pass through a planer but would certainly make a good panel for a box or some such thing.

And then I also thought how wonderful it was to work on a huge immobile Lie-Nielsen workbench and know I will have to put "making a solid workbench" at the top of my project list once my shop is up and running.

Oh, and I did sneak out of class with my perfectly flat and square board, so I'll be sure to post a picture or two of it in the next day or so. I thought maybe I would try to put the board to some sort of good use by using it to make a box I can use to store one of my hand planes (maybe one of my friendly little Record 043 plough planes?).

I'll also write up a more detailed description of the class, for your reading pleasure, full of the little bits of information I picked up while in attendance and some of the new vocabulary I learned from Chris. Hopefully I can also entice you and encourage you to try attending such a class as may be offered in the future!

(For anyone wondering about the #8 to the right of the note, that was a bit of a joke between me and Chris. When he announced the contest on the first day, he said, "The winner of the contest would receive..." and then glanced over at the "table of treasures" by Thomas Lie-Nielsen, full of books and shirts and a wonderful assortment of hand planes and chisels and such. I piped in with, "A number eight?" He smiled and said, "Well, probably not a number eight, but something." So, of course, when I won, he had to give me a "number eight".)

The Rusling Box, Critical Evaluation...

One thing I loved about my studio art classes in college was that we learned really good peer- and self-evaluation skills. Having a critical review of my work is something I really miss, so I'm going to try and perform them on myself after each project.

Lessons Learned:

• Carefully consider accepting a job when it involves a short time frame and your shop is completely dismantled.
• Use the steel roller to press the fabric to the double-stick tape when making the lining.
• Cheap locks are cheap for a reason - with a more expensive lock, you get easier installation.
• Cut the lock mortise before gluing up the box.
• Finish the inside of the box before gluing it up (I usually do this, but I was so rushed this time I forgot about it. I paid for it trying to get a good finish on the inside after it was assembled).
• Mortise the hinges with a mortising pattern bit and my new hinge jig!
• See if I can find some #1 screws so I don't have to use the round-headed pins to attach the catch on the lock.

Opportunities for Improvement:

• I'm still not quite happy with my miter joints. I need to figure out how I can get them a little bit tighter.
• Allow more time for the finishing process; I would have liked to give it a day or two to fully cure before rubbing it out, but I was under severe time constraints with this box.
• Sharpen your damn chisels and plane blades, Ethan! I was ashamed at how poorly some of them were cutting. I need to develop the habit of sharpening my tools immediately after a project is done so they are ready for the next project.
  
• As you can see in the picture below, the divider is not equally spaced. It wasn't meant to be. I laid out the space based on the average size of a sgian dubh. What I didn't count on was that it is close enough to the center of the box that it might look like I was trying to center it and failed. I'll keep that in mind for next time.

Final Statement:
I'm quite pleased with how this box turned out, all things said and done. I didn't like rushing through it; since woodworking is a hobby for me, I like to take my time and enjoy the process of creation and I wasn't able to feel that in every part of the process. I like the combination of the green suede cloth and the oak. I also like the bog oak escutcheon. I will probably use both of those ideas in future boxes. And I'll make sure my divider sections aren't too close to center of the box.

While it felt good to carry a camera around with me most of the time I was building this box, I think I spent an awfully long time writing every little step down. In the future, I'll try to take a good number of pictures but do a bit less typing when I talk about the project.

By the way... I'm always open to receiving constructive criticism on my projects and techniques. Honestly, I'll even politely listen if you have non-constructive criticism, but the constructive kind is more helpful.

Thanks to everyone who read through my sometimes extensive writing as I worked my way through this project! I promise future projects won't have as much "content". And thanks much to Jim Malcolm, former lead singer for Old Blind Dogs, whose music kept me company while I was writing my entries. If you're at all interested in hearing some really good traditional Scottish Folk music, please check him out.