If you’re anything like me, you’re waiting until tonight to wrap and assemble all the various bits of play furniture and whatnot that’s been flatpacked and hiding under your bed for the past month. And, also like me, you’ll be tackling it with an old drill whose battery is only good for one or two good pulls of the trigger before it has to be plugged back in. That means that you’ll be spending the majority of Christmas Eve (and into early Christmas Morning) fighting off hand cramps as you attempt to drive the approximately 5,000 screws that all flat-packed whatever seem to require for assembly.
This is the year you need to take back your Christmas Eve! Ridgid has a fantastic two tool combo set for just $119 that consists of a 12-volt 2-speed drill and the greatest tool you’ve never realized you needed, an impact driver.
What’s the difference between the two? An impact driver doesn’t take drill bits – it’s meant for one thing only, driving screws with the maximum amount of torque so that you can power through whatever project you throw at it – fast. It even has enough power to handle long screws and lag bolts without fading. What would have been a good hour of grumbling and cursing for me turned into… well still a fair amount of grumbling as I tried to figure out which “Part A” fit into which other “Part B” that was mislabeled “Part A”… but I digress. In fifteen minutes, I was able to complete assembly of my daughter’s doll’s new trundle bed and still had plenty of time to join my wife in wrapping gifts.
The drill has a 4-volt battery, the impact drive a 2-volt battery. Both come with super bright onboard LED lights, which will be handy for tight spaces where it’s hard to see where you’re working. The “hex grip” on the handles is nice and grippy as well. They fit nicely into the included carrying case (along with the charger), so there’s no chance of losing pieces in your workshop (garage, pile under the stairs). There are larger and more powerful sets available; but if you’re just an occasional home improvement dabbler, this set will provide you with more than enough power. And I actually like that the tools are a bit smaller. Especially for longer projects, having to lug around a giant drill gets to be a (literal) pain.
You can find the Ridgid 12-Volt 2-Speed Drill/Driver and Impact Driver set on Amazon; but if you need to make some Holiday Magic of your own right away, head down to your local Home Depot – the Ridgid page will take you right to the listing for your local store.
Thanks to Ridgid for providing a review sample. Opinions and uncramped fingers are my own.
