Hammer Time

So here is what happened. There is this drill right? The Hammer Drill, and it is fat nasty. Its a big bad piece of equipment and you have to be careful with it.

Here it is:




Anyway. We had an interesting day today. The last few days, me and some other guys from work have been using this drill. Actually they had been using it. They had reported having a tough time with it. One guy got hit in the nose by the drill. Funny huh?

What happens is that the drill has a ton of torque. And sometimes it binds up inside the wall. So when the drill is spinning and the bit gets stuck, then then rest of the drill starts spinning. It whirled around and smacked him in the nose. Another guy got his arm scraped. They told me about it, but said it was ok though.

Then I used the drill. I realized pretty quickly that something was wrong. This thing is to big and strong for the easy job we were doing. I used a much smaller hammer drill last year in Utah. I did not feel comfortable being up on the ladder with this thing. The first thing I said to do, was turn off the drill part. You can make it so it doesn't turn. It just pounds back and forth quickly. I did that, and it cut right through the wall. The guy with the scraped arm saw that and said, "aww man, thats the way we should have been doing it."

Problem solved right?

The next day, the same guy used the drill. Did he put it on hammer only, as we discovered was safe and effective? Nope. Got back up on the ladder in a tiny space and had that nasty drill spinning away. What happened? He got it stuck in the wall. When he pulled the trigger to try to get it out. The entire handle and motor part of the drill whipped around and hit him right in the forhead. Cut his head open. He had to go to the emergency room for 7 stitches.

This drill is too big and bad for what we are doing. We went to the supply warehouse and asked for a smaller one. They had one, of course, and now we should be ok.

But I don't get how people can do things that don't feel comfortable. I wasn't sure if there was a problem or not. But when I got up there and started using it, I immediately knew there was something not quite right. They don't make tools that make you feel unsafe when you use them. What do I know though?

-T