The push drill - perfect design (rambly, as usual)
Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA
>Getting the house ready for Christmas lights today. When we had the house painted this last summer, we had the painters remove the 10d nails that stuck out all around the top of the porch to hang lights from (ugly, but it was how I solved the problem 30 or so years ago). Today, I put up 26 brass cup hooks, with more to come tomorrow, I hope. Drill tiny hole, start cup hook in hole, finish with a cup-hook wrench (wooden stick with a slot in the end, easier than pliers).
I just can't imagine doing the job without my trusty North Bros. push drill. I was working semi-blind, as there's a faux beam that runs from post to post, so I was spacing the hooks out from the beam on the outside (from the inside, since that's where the porch floor is - hard to set a stepladder in space) with a block of wood held in one hand, push drill in the other. Hold up block against beam and soffit, set tip of bit beside it by feel, push drill to start hole, remove block, finish drilling, install cup hook. I tried imagining doing it with an 18V cordless drill...I just don't have the right biceps for a project like that, and I'm not even sure Ah-nold does.