I have always loved old things, flyrods, guns, dogs, cars, etc. I have always had a real weakness for old hand tools. One of my many hobbies is wood carving so a lot of my large hand tool collection consisted of items such as chisels, adze, drills, carving axe and the like. I finally had such a large collection that it was getting to be a problem to house so I kept my favorite pieces and sold the rest off.

I don't limit my interest to just old hand tools. I am always looking at new gadgets when it comes to tools for various jobs. Being somewhat set in my ways, it took me a while to use power tools for some of my projects. After years, I became comfortable with using power tools, and frequently use them now.

The next big hurdle in my slow evolutionary march towards tool growth was the cordless battery powered tool. My impression of them was I would never buy one of those when the battery dies the tool was useless or you have to keep buying batteries for it. I am sticking to my corded power tools!

This mindset went on for many years. Then one cold, rainy day I was comfortably settled on the couch watching This Old House and I noted that all of the building professionals on the show were using cordless tools. Everything from Skil saws to drills and they seemed to be working great. This observation led me to think perhaps I should think a bit more about this.

After pondering it for a bit, I decided to dip my toes into the cordless pool and purchased a cordless drill. After using it a few times around the house, I discovered that it was extremely handy not having to plug a cord in every time I want to do anything and not having to work around a flopping electrical cord. I was so happy that I now have a cordless angle grinder and a cordless Sawzall, and even a cordless oscillating cutting tool.

I have always had a corded Dremel rotary tool, which has got to be on the all-time best tool list, so I decided to go wild and buy a cordless one. Once again, I was very happy with the results and found it much handier to use on various projects without having to deal with plugging in a cord. To finish off my buy in to cordless tools I bought a 48 V cordless electric snowblower, which has not been used yet, but when I do, I will write a review of that. Maybe as a sign, I recently won a cordless leaf blower in a raffle!

As far as charging the various tools, I found it a simple quick process. I store the batteries and chargers on the same rack that I store the tools on for convenience and whenever I know I'm going to need something I plug it in and give it a good charge. Most of the time the tools will hold a charge for a good long time as I am not a professional builder so they do not face the rigors of a job site workplace.

Now my thoughts on electric cars? Well, I think I will hold those for another day.

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