Someone at Makita must read this website.

Or else they’re just really intuitive about how many women are in the market for really good power tools these days.

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Oh, baby.

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I think this is love.

My relationship with power tools has always been twofold. One, I love them. Two, I know they will always be a little too big or unweildy to fit my hands properly, and that is just something I’ve learned to live with. I know there are a couple of lines of “power tools for women” but frankly, even I don’t want to buy them and I am a woman. I really just wanted to find regular tools that just happened to fit my hand comfortably. So I really can’t blame power tool companies for not catering to my niche of the market.

But let me show you something amazing…

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That is my hand reaching both the trigger, and the directional switch, at the same time.

Do you know how amazing that is? This is what my hand usually looks like on a drill.

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I’m not knocking my old drill (which isn’t even that old really). I’ve been saying I’m going to go buy myself a good drill for about three years. Then I was the beneficiary of a hand-me-down Craftsman, which worked okay, weighed about 7 pounds, and took two hands and a foot for me to get the battery off. I started whining again around Christmas last year, an MysteryMan got me this Power Smith, which has nary a scratch on it. It’s a great around-the-house drill, but any time I tried to drill into wood with it (which, okay, was a lot) the batteries were sucked dry in half a minute.

So I finally sucked it up and went out drill shopping, and holy hell did Makita ever come through on this one. This is a regular compact drill. Not a “power tool for women.” It’s 18v, 450 lbs. in., weighs 3.5 pounds, and it fits my damn hand. I don’t care who says what… Makita built this drill for women (or fifth graders). And also? Drills through wood like butter.

I can’t believe I lived my life this long without this drill. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m sure there are things in this house that need holes in them.

8 Responses

  1. Don’t get me started on the Makita! Mine is an older (like quite a bit older) model that takes the stick batteries…and I love it more than any woman should love a tool (heh.). It is soooo lightweight– more so than our Ryobi– and the trigger is indeed within reach for small hands. That’s real love.

    [Swoon]

  2. I LOVE our Makita cordless drill! I, too, have problems with small hands… most of our tools are too big for me. Not the drill! 🙂 I got it for Christmas last year… GREAT present if you ask me!

  3. Ooh, I think I’m in love with that drill. I just stumbled on your blog a couple days ago and love it. I posted about your link on my blog so I could spread the love. I only dabble in DIY, but given more money and time, I would go nuts. Keep posting.

  4. Do you have any other similar blogs and/or related fields of expression. This information has caused in me some quasi-cascade effect that has resulted in a great rearangement of my knowledge almost akin to a complete paradigm shift in the way I perceive the world. Thank you so much for this and I bet you wil accumulate a ton of Karma and positive chi due to your wonderful undertaking in this blog!

  5. So I’ve been binge reading your blog since I discovered it a couple of weeks ago (I’m late to the party, I know). Besides being totally inspired to finally tear out the ensuite shower (and floor, and maybe some non-load-bearing walls – cabinets to follow! Hubs doesn’t know whether to thank you or take away my internet), I love reading your power tool reviews. I may have a few inches of height on you, but I have baby hands. A small, lightweight, and yet more-than-capable drill has been on my wish list for a while. I finally caved and bought a used version of this Makita. OMG. Color me SOLD on the quality of this drill! It’s a perfect fit for my small hands and so feather-light I could work with it all day long – which is good because I need to go drill 8 holes into each of about 300 fence posts for our new finishline fencing. THANK YOU for bringing this little gem and me together!

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