An aspect that customers never see is the care and maintenance of my tools and the day to day running costs to keep all these tools working.
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The impact driver is an essential part of a modern carpenters tool kit |
My impact driver is an example of this. This week I've had to purchase two new batteries (coming in at over £50) and replace the brushes to keep it working.
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Brushes worn out from lots of use! |
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The old worn brush on the left and what it should look like on the right |
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New brushes in place - no down time at a customers house now! |
The constant maintenance, sharpening, repairing and updating kit takes lots of time and costs a lot of money every year. A modern and efficient carpenter has to have far more kit than any other trade in the building industry.
Not to mention the ton and a half pile of tools and supplies you need to have in your truck/van. Inevitably just the one you need got left in the shop. Metric allen wrenches? oh crap I had them out the other day to repair the car and left them on the bench.
ReplyDeleteJust the shear value of all those tools is something else! and to constantly upgrade them. My pet hate is when someone says "tradesmen of old didn't have nail guns and all those fancy tools". I think that it would have taken them much longer and if they want to pay hourly then I'll quite happily do it!
DeleteI suspect that a LOT of perfectly repairable tools get thrown away every year by folks who don't know how to fix them.
ReplyDeleteI think you're probably right. In fact I've got an old drill in the shed I've been meaning to fix for ages so I should have a look at sorting that out really rather than throwing it away.
Deleteso where do you get things like new brushes from then?
ReplyDeleteThese were from eBay. But I just Google the part number and it normally comes up.
DeleteIt's really satisfying when something can be fixed so cheaply - one of the (many) reasons I steer away from cheap tools is a lack or spare parts. When the brushes go on a Chinese drill, the thing is as good as scrap.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, thanks for adding An Acre In Hampshire to your blog list Kev!
No worries! I hate using cheap tools and I give them far to much abuse for them to last any amount of time. I've been moving on to Festool now so there really is no hope for me anymore!
DeleteMy Dewalt drill goes everywhere with me and I had no idea that brushes could be changed without taking it to an expensive repair shop. TBH I've always replaced the drill instead - I know how ridiculous that logic is lol. I'm certainly going to bear this in mind in the future and I do believe I even have a Dewalt drill sitting in the tool shed with naff brushes that I haven't thrown out yet - thank you :)
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ReplyDeleteIt is a nice post.
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