The Yankee Drill

A Yankee drill — also known as a Yankee Screwdriver or a Push-Drill — is not only a must-have for every man  who owns a tool box, but is also one of the best kept secrets of hand tools.

I say this with some amount of verifiable data because when we had our fire a few years ago, the Yankee Drill was the one item that kept flummoxing the Liberty Insurance computers when it was trying to establish a replacement value.

A what kind of drill?

The Yankee Drill has been around since the mid 1800’s and is one of the earliest forms of hand held drills. It is a mechanical tool — it looks like a long stick with a handle on one end that has a rotating end that is flat but when you set it against a flat surface and press against it, the drill rotates in the shaft and into the surface.

Now you won’t see commercials about Yankee Drills. There will not be huge displays at Lowes, it won’t be a NASCAR sponsor and your neighbor won’t ask you to come over and look at his new Yankee drill that he just got.

Why? Because there’s nothing really sexy about them and they’ve been around forever.

Which is the second reason you need to have one. Because it’s simple, time tested, reliable and will last you a lifetime — unless you burn your house down — and will also save you an enormous amount of time.

But if I have a cordless drill, why would you need a 150 year old hand held drill?

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Great question. And here is one answer. Pilot holes.

Picture this. You are putting up a set of vertical blinds — I’m using this as an example because I hate putting up vertical blinds.

So here is the normal process.

1. You place the little white boxes where you need them on the wall.
2. You mark the holes with a pencil.
3. You take your cordless drill and place in a drill bit.
4. You drill the pilot holes in the pencil marks.
5. You replace the drill bit with the screwdriver bit.
6. You use the cordless screwdriver to screw in the hardware.

or …

1.  You place the little white boxes where you need them on the wall.

2. You take your Yankee Drill and drill in pilot holes — skipping the pencil step.

3. You take your cordless screwdriver and screw in the screws.

Done.

Think of every time you need to drill a pilot hole — and every time you try to screw in something without a pilot hole because you don’t feel like changing the bit on your cordless drill again and spend ten minutes trying to get the screw to bite into the wood on its own. And now take the Yankee Drill; light, easy to push and bam. Instant pilot hole.

Now you can use your Yankee Drill for standard drilling as well and it is great for areas that the cordless can’t fit in or if you just don’t feel like dragging it out. But just in drilling pilot holes alone, this gem will pay for itself the first few times you use it and you’ll end up using it more than you think.

Yankee drills are usually easier to find online than they are in hardware stores — Sears has them on their online store but I have yet to find one in an actual Sears store. They come with double fluted bits — which work differently than the modern twist because it cuts as you push and they clears as you release — and will run you about thirty bucks.

You won’t regret getting one of these.