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Dropped $340 on a magnetic drill for one job and it changed how I bid steel work
I do small welding and fab jobs around Dayton and for two years I drilled every base plate with a hand drill and a pile of burned up bits. Last spring a guy asked me to set 14 columns for a shop build and I knew the hand drill would eat the whole week, so I bought a used magnetic drill off a retiring millwright for $340. I ran all 14 columns in a day and a half, holes were dead straight, and the inspector didn't flag a single one. The math got easy after that, I stopped pricing drill time into jobs and started winning bids I used to lose by $200 or $300. My only regret is not doing it sooner, the bits alone were costing me $60 a month. Anyone else here buy one tool that quietly changed the way they quote work?
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the_ben14d ago
Did you figure in the wear and tear on your body too, or just the bit costs and time? Drilling overhead with a hand drill wrecks your shoulders and elbows over time, and that kind of thing creeps up on you in your 40s whether you notice it now or not. The tool pays for itself, but the real savings might be the years you get to keep working without your arms nagging you every morning.
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