This was a two-fold challenge. I needed to create drainage in our office trash can and I wanted to learn more about my power drills for future projects. First, our office is on a well traversed street in Mid City New Orleans. There are some high-density bars nearby. There always are some extremely unpleasant surprises in our trash cans on Monday mornings. Also, people seem to leave the cans open. This is New Orleans, we get a lot of rain. The trash collectors now refuse to dump the cans that have any fluids in them. I really don’t blame them but I’m unsure why these city-issued cans don’t come equipped with drainage. I have twice now had to personally dump the cans to get all the liquid out then put all the trash back in. A good way to catch the Plague. I took my drill and inserted a 5/32 drill bit and drilled about 6 holes into the base. Problem solved.
However, what I really wanted to do was get more familiar with power tools. I’m not Tim “The Toolman” Taylor. Before I did the above, I pretty much deconstructed the drill so I knew how all the functioning parts worked, i.e., Speed, Chuck, Torque and Clutch. The drill I was using had a 2 speed transmission so pretty simple. The clutch collar determines the resistance for stopping the screw. I was working with a 15 setting clutch (I only needed drill mode for this project which disables the clutch). Finally, the chuck is what keeps the bits in place. They don’t teach enough about personal finance in schools and they sure don’t teach enough trait knowledge either. Ever thus to the curious and the autodidacts!