why woodworkers don't use impact drivers

you shouldn't use impact drivers for woodworking or so say some people but is that really true [Music] I think the most useful part you get with a drill is the clutch this makes the drill stop turning when a tree stays certain pressure or Torque I can set the clutch really low and just grab onto the Chuck and the clutch just lets go and stops spinning even though my finger is still on the trigger this allows you to drive a screw and the drill will stop the screw threads from stripping out in the wood and just doing the spin of death if you're using a large hole saw you can use the clutch to prevent you from breaking your wrists if it binds up the handiest thing that an impact driver has is the Quick Change bit release as much as I try to only keep Square Drive screws in my shop somehow a rogue Phillips appears and I need to bury my pride and deal with that and then Forks are becoming ever increasingly popular as well the point being I'm swapping driver bits more than I'd like to and the impact makes it easy to do that and I like easy yes you can get a magnetic bit holder and keep it permanently mounted in a drill but I haven't found one that doesn't leave the bit in the screw every time you sink one one of the most recognizable features of an impact driver is the noise that it makes when you sink a screw it's that that was a better impression than I thought it's this noise that puts the impact in Impact Driver now imagine if I put a wrench on a screwdriver handle and hit the end of the wrench with a hammer in the direction of rotation this is what an impact driver does to the bit many times a second and it has a couple of advantages that I'll explain in a moment a big advantage that this rotary impact has is preventing the bit from jumping out of the screw and eventually stripping it let me explain sometimes your bit may have the tendency to climb out of the screw head and this could be caused by a few different things like not having enough pressure down on the screw having the bit at an angle to the screw using a bit that's worn out or using a screw that's already mangled up these last two things are avoidable but the first two might not be how the impact helps this is not so obvious in the Split Second after the impact hits there is a moment where there is no rotation in this moment the downward pressure that you are applying to the driver will force the bit back into to the bottom of the screw head as this happens many times a second it truly prevents the screw head from being stripped the other thing the impact does for us is apply more overall torque to the screw but I find for what we're doing here in the workshop it doesn't really benefit us in fact it can lead to more broken screws if you're not careful since we're pre-drilling for all of our screws you are aren't you we really don't need a butt load of torque to sink screws even into Hardwoods this is why I chose to get impact drivers that have this switch right here it adjusts the speed and torque and I find that I'm usually using it on the medium speed but if I'm driving a tiny screw then I'll put it on the slowest speed and I've never had an issue I'll get to my final thoughts on the drill versus driver debate in a minute but there's a few other grievances to be aired so I've seen a lot of drill charging stations on YouTube and there are a lot of nice ones nice big ones but for the longest time I only had one drill and one driver and that was fine I didn't need any more more and changing bits with these is super quick and easy it's not like you need a check key like you did with your Tad's Old Black and Decker power drill from 1973. now eventually I came across a more compact drill and I couldn't resist buying it and then DeWalt sent me their new Atomic compact impact driver and I am really loving this one as well but I can't imagine how having any more than two drills and two drivers can possibly make me more efficient maybe I'm missing something now I'm a fanboy of DeWalt pretty much because I saw Mike Holmes use them on TV when I was a kid man marketing really does work on me I also like things that match because I'm shallow but really the main reason why I chose to stick with one brand over the other is so that I don't have to deal with multiple battery platforms I don't know if that's superficial or whatever but it just makes things simpler and easier for me to deal with and it means I don't have to have huge storage solutions for different batteries because my small shop really can't handle anything else at this point real quick I do want to talk about the differences between this compact drill and compact driver and these more regular sized ones there's no difference at least in performance for my needs as a hobbyist the compact ones are more than powerful enough for drilling and screwing through Hardwoods I would be fine if all I had were the compact ones or even the lower voltage counterparts too and the ergonomics on these are far superior they're just lighter more maneuverable and they can get into places where the larger ones can't real quicker I just want to talk about brushless versus brushed motors get the brushless don't ask me why you don't want to hear me talk about electric motors so is the drill better than the impact driver for the home hobbyist woodworker maybe a little but there are advantages to both so I wouldn't dismiss the impact either if you already own impacts don't get rid of them if you're just starting out Woodworking and you can't justify having one of each just get the drill first if you don't like your impact because it can't change speeds then try one with a speed selection switch if you're having trouble with screws doing the spin of death then try using a drill with a lower clutch setting if you're stripping screw heads out with a drill try using an impact and see how you like it final conclusion it depends drills and drivers are like any other tool in your shop in that they need a place to live and this might be the only compact drill charging station on YouTube so click right here if you want to know more about it and to build your own

Channel: Scott Walsh

Views: 196,500

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Id: hmSZFjDyYMM

Length: 5min 47sec (347 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 12 2022