|
Posted by Lawrence on February 7, 2007, 12:40 pm
> I bought a Dewalt 257 about a year ago to fix drywall problems, but
> the gun never worked well for me. Sometimes the clutch would
> disengage with a satisfying pop and the screw would be set at the
> correct depth, other times, the bit would spin in the screwhead,
> stripping it and leaving it high. I tried a variety of depth settings
> and techniques, but rarely got the "pop". In the end, I wasted more
> time with this tool than I would have with a drill.
>
> On the advice of Dewalt customer support, I the tool by one of the
> support centers yesterday. The technician told me
>
> 1) The clutch is not intended to control the depth the screw is set.
> It exists only to enable the operator to insert screws into the unit
> more rapidly because it stops spinning.
>
> 2) The depth of the screw is solely controlled by the nosepiece; when
> it encounters the work surface, the operator must release the trigger
> to stop drilling.
>
> The technician's statements do not match my understanding of how these
> units are supposed to work. Is the technician correct?
He is correct. The drill you have is a tool designed as a drill
which also functions as a driver. The clutch is a nice feature which
only occurs on cordless drill. It feels the tourqe being applied.
When it reaches the set level of tourque then the clutch kicks in.
This will allow you to set some drywall screws perfectly while other
not. This is because the underlying board has soft places and hard
knots all along it's length. It is still a good tool for drywall work
but you have to control the depth of the screw and only use the clutch
as a helper. I like to start out at a really low number and then
creep it up until it will drive anything. I use the slow speed and
drive the screw in with short bursts, setting the depth manually. My
12V Pansonic will snap the head of a drywall screw right off so I use
the clutch to prevent that, lol.
There are drills which are used excusively for drywall in both
electric and cordless. Any pro I've seen used a corded. They have a
sleeve on the front which holds the screw and slides back to a pre-set
depth to correctly intall the screw. When the surface of the sleeve
hits the surface of the rock it releases the screw. There are also
devices which are an attachment to a regular drill which are supposed
to do the same thing.
So anyway there is nothing wrong with the drill. If you only have a
few screws to drive then you need nothing else. Just slow down a
little and set the screw with your eyes and hands.
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap