Schroeder Hand Drill 1/4-Inch Capacity
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Our Price: $22.85 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $22.00 (click here) Category: Tools See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Schroeder Hand Drill 1/4-Inch Capacity
Customer Review: Schroeder series manual Hand Drills...
Summary: 5 Stars
Schroeder makes a fantastic, rugged product. Provides exactly the kind of control desired... actually a little larger than Fiskars models that we've used for delicate/tricky drilling jobs. Have already used this model on all typical housing materials including a range of woods and with masonry and specialty bits on mortar, cement, brick, drywall, etc. with success. It has an excellent gear mechanism. Personally, I think this should be required use before folks ruin their projects with power drills they don't know how to use, though this is not a replacement for a power drill. Just my thoughts.Customer Review: Simple Tool for Simple Jobs
Summary: 4 Stars
I had a broken peg in a Cribbage board. Obviously, I simply needed to drill out the remains of the peg. But my aging electric drill would not hold a charge. I had drill bits, but no drill. This simple tool provided a good solution.
Amazon shipped promptly but it took the Post Office 10 days to deliver this item. If your in a hurry I'd suggest using one of the 'premium' shipping options.
Customer Review: Strong, solid tool
Summary: 5 Stars
The day of the 'eggbeater' drill is not yet past. I want a child in my life to get started with tools, things her little-girl strength and hands can manage with reasonable safety - that rules out any cordless drill worth the name. I'm also aware that she, like any child, will probably trash at least her first set of tools. ("Experience is proportional to the amount of equipment destroyed.") Still, I refuse to buy toy tools, not least out of respect for the child's intelligence.
This meets all my requirements and then some. It's moderately priced, its mass and size match small hands, there are no extra parts (other than drill bits) to lose or abuse, and it's real. It's not big, but the gears make this machine and they are rock solid. Turn the crank: the action runs smoothly and quietly, with the precision you expect of German engineering. The chuck looks undersized, but fits a 1/4" bit comfortably and solidly. If you insist on a hollow handle for the bits - well, too bad.
People want compact tools for many reasons, and tools that don't need power supplies for many others. This meets both needs. With care, I expect it to deliver years or decades of service. Under the circumstances, it probably won't get good care - but I expect it to stand up as well as any under the loving abuse of an eager child.
-- wiredweird
Customer Review: Very Solid
Summary: 4 Stars
There aren't a whole lot of hand drills available. Most tool manufacturers assume that everybody wants electric drills all the time, but there are plenty of reasons why one would want to drill holes with one's own bio-energy as the power source. It's quiet, ultra-portable, and eco-friendly to the Nth degree. But what kind of hand drill is best? There are three designs. The spiral-sliding kind delivers pressure onto the bit easily but won't give you continuous rotation because it stops turning while you slide the cuff back up the shaft. A classic bit-brace allows you to bear down and turn continuously, but your RPMs are limited to the speed at which you can whip your arm around - and you have to have a few cubic feet of space to operate. Sometimes you need faster rotation, and sometimes you have to work in a relatively confined space. That's when you need a crank drill; it's compact and has a gear ratio giving you about three rotations of the bit for every single rotataion of the crank wheel. Of the three models I've seen, the Schroeder is probably the best-made. The shaft is thicker, the gears are sturdier and the chuck is more massive. I own one of the Fiskars craft drills and I like it (the pistol grip makes it easier and perhaps safer to manipulate) but the Fiskars gears must be made of plastic; sometimes they slip. I don't think that problem is even possible with the Schroeder. Although its bright orange-painted crank wheel gives it a festive "Lego" appearance, this is a serious tool. It's heavy and well-constructed, and I fully expect it to last a lifetime.
There are a few minor design flaws. With the exposed gear, it is possible to pinch your fingers in the sprocket teeth if you're not careful. As I mentioned already, the screwdriver-handle is not as easy to hold & push forward as the Fiskars grip, but Schroeder makes up for that by being stronger & more mechanically reliable. The product description claims that this drill will hold a 1/4 inch bit. It is true that you can fit a bit that large into the chuck, but you're not going to have enough torque to actually TURN it ... and I've found that the chuck will slip off of bits bigger than 1/8, leaving you with the delightful problem of extracting a stuck bit from a half-drilled hole.
But, let me stress, this is a VERY well-made tool: solid, dependable and perfect for drilling _small_ holes in wood, putty, various construction & sculptural materials, basically anything hard that you need to poke small holes into. I bought it as a replacement for my old Fiskars, and it's definitely an upgrade from that.
Customer Review: Very handy
Summary: 5 Stars
I tried to find one of these in a large hardware store, and they had no idea what I was talking about. So I was glad to get this one. It's very, very handy for light, accurate, silent drilling without having to mess with electric outlets, rechargers, weight, awkwardness etc. that come with power tools. I wouldn't want to use it all day, but for light household tasks, it's great.