Power tools not a toy for weak of heart

Tag : power tools
A few weeks ago, I declared myself the true candidate of change anddedicated myself to a campaign for the house. My house.

I'm running on a platform of energy savings and infrastructureimprovements.

Now, as with other candidates, I find people inquiring into mypast. So I have a confession to make: I've never exactly been Mr.Power Tool.

I think I first realized this way back in junior high school (knownas middle school in these parts). I was terrified of shop class.Scared the bejesus out of me. I had to count my fingers every timeI left the room. (Of course, I was on my way to math class.)

So today I don't own a power saw of any kind. You can tell if youever looked carefully at the bottom of the door to my son's oldroom. He was a good sport about it. At least he had a door.

We do have a battery-powered screwdriver that can accept drillbits, but it never really had enough power to turn a reluctantscrew or enough torque to sink much of a hole.

This fall, though, we embarked on a home makeover that will, mostlikely, eventually end with a do-it-yourself kitchen renovation.Oh, we'll call in the electricians and the plumber and thecountertop installers. But we figure we can do the demolition, prepwork and prefab cabinet installation ourselves.

The cabinets we're looking at are hung from pins that are fastenedto strips that are attached to the walls. The strips are screwed.And that means I am, too.

Have you ever tried using a manual screwdriver on dozens of large,reluctant screws? It's slow and not much fun. And ourbattery-powered screwdriver is a non-starter. Literally.

So my wife bought me my first real home handyman power tool: acordless drill that has a screwdriver attachment. Or is it acordless screwdriver that accepts drill bits? At any rate, it'shefty and very macho.

I first had the chance to use it when we disassembled and moved theinfamous Killer Credenza and the dining room table, which in aprevious incarnation had been a hefty conference table for anoffice, thick with inlaid wood and marble. If you're a longtimereader of this column, you may remember the Killer Credenza fromwhen we first got it, many years ago. It was hard to move andharder to reassemble. My wrist got tired from the constant twistingof the manual screwdriver.

With the new power screwdriver, however, it wasn't the disaster Ihad envisioned. In fact, it was kind of fun.

So with a kind of cocky confidence, I embarked on Phase 2 of ourproject: replacing the standing bookcases that we have around thehouse with wall shelves. Do not underestimate the scope of thisproject. We are biblioholics. We have more books than some smalllibraries — easily more than, for example, this newspaper'slibrary. I'm not kidding.

I identified about 15 standing bookcases around the house that werein front of our baseboard heaters or otherwise wasting space, andset out to replace them with dual-track wall shelves. I was able tolocate the wall studs (very macho) and use a level to align thetracks. Then it was whir, whir, whir as I sank those screws intothe wall. I didn't even have to drill holes for the screws first.

It was great — except for those last few screws where theblade skipped and stripped the head of the screw. Then it wasbam-bam-bam, like a jackhammer hitting the walls.

Strange thing, too — it started happening more often. I hadto lean into the drill to get the screws to move. The head of thescrew would become too hot to touch, and eventually I realized thatI was stripping not only the head of the screw, but the blade ofthe screwdriver. It was now almost small enough to adjust myeyeglasses.

Screwed again.

So now I'll embark on an amended version of my great infrastructureimprovement and energy efficiency plan. This time, though, I'llborrow another theme: Drill, baby, drill!

Howard Fielding lives in Southbury. You can write to him at theRepublican-American, 389 Meadow St., Waterbury 06722 or by e-mailto hfielding@rep-am.com .