This oscillating multi-tool reminded me this week of how the right tool can change a job from long and hard to fun and trivial.
While helping my dad install a new dishwasher, we needed to enlarge some holes in the back of the cabinetry, for the water lines. This would be an hour of tiring, awkward work with any of the second-best tools we were likely to use, but an oscillating multi-tool made it into 15 minutes of cutting that was so fun, we were almost disappointed when it was done.
(For the purposes of this job, its good tricks are plunge cuts, fast and effortless cutting, and being adjustable to work in awkward spaces at awkward angles).
Mine is a Milwaukee M12, but every cordless system worthy of the name will have a similar tool in the catalog.
I don’t know if I would have bought this tool just to do the job, but fortunately I had used a previous project (cutting Christmas tree rounds for a crafting project for Rebecca) as an excuse to get it, so I had it for this!
The meta-lesson is not only to buy the right tool when you need it, rather than struggle with almost-right tools, but to be familiar with the available tools in the world. You may not need a powered pipe cutter, a blind bearing remover, or a basin wrench at the moment, but understanding the available tools, in any field, is incredibly valuable, and can change many “impossible” jobs into trivial ones.
(The meta-meta-lesson is if you’re doing a job and run into a hard or “impossible” task, do some research or ask an expert. You’re almost never the first person to run into a problem, and chances are there’s a tool or technique that will solve your problem, often trivially.)
Coda: hours after writing this, I was sewing on a button, and rather than find my thread ripper, I tried to use a folding knife to get the old thread off the button. You won’t believe what happened next:
