New underwater drill from HF! $20!!!

[LakeMac26C]

Click bait, I know it, but I just repaired my centerboard cable with a cheap drill from Harbor Freight and it was a huge success and saved me a lot of money!
The PO for some reason decided to replace the centerboard cable with a combination of cable, rope, and epoxy. Being new to this boat, I could see that the metal cable part was 90% broken and the whole assembly too short...I couldn't get the CB all the way down! So I bought the cable/rope/lock assembly from BWY and was happy to see how easy it was to install...just one bolt! After trying many times to get my boat up on boat jacks in my back yard, I decided it was not at all safe for me to crawl under the boat. Since the wx warmed up here, I put my goggles and snorkel on and swam under the boat with some wrenches stuffed in my shorts only to find out the PO HAD GLUED THE METAL THIMBLE INTO THE CENTERBOARD WITH EPOXY!!! Not only was this procedure MUCH harder than replacing it with a bolt, but it meant I would have to drill or chisel out the epoxy and attach the CB cable somehow. I decided good, sturdy rope with a stopper knot would be more than enough for the CB. I would need to drill a single hole through the side of the CB and just put the rope through. I know the knot will slow my boat down 0.0001kts, but that's the life I lead. I called the local marina and they wanted between $10-12/ft to put my boat on a lift and wanted me to work after hours. NOPE!

So I went to HF, bought their drill, took it apart and used silicone conformal coating on all the electronic parts I could find. For the rest I used dielectric grease. Yes, it had a 12V lithium battery and shorting it out in fresh water was certainly an issue, but it worked! Sorta. The drill kept stalling when it was in the water, but would return to life immediately after I took it out of the water.

We happened to have a plastic bread bag and some tape and I thought, "Why not?" The cheap bag and tape was enough for me to get one good hole in the CB epoxy and it was easy to feed the new rope into the CB tube.

FIXED for $20 plus the cost of a stepper drill bit!!! And now I have a power drill I don't care to beat on and destroy!

[NiceAft]

First off, welcome to the forum.

Second, there ain't nothing like success

[OverEasy]

Okay, now THATS a novel approach!!!

A gubber (no disrespect intended but I lack the vocabulary to describe it any other way) insulated cordless drill in a ziplock underwater!!!
Actually that might actually verge on GENIUS!!!
Absolute out of the box GENIUS!!!

I love it!

I’m glad it worked for you and that you were able to solve your problem issue.

Personally the era of cordless power tools have saved so many people from the injury, damage and fatalities associated with corded power tools that I hav3 personally seen, never mind the ones I’ve heard about, including my own.

Years ago I had ice dams on my roof that were driving water under the shingles and into the soffits threatening the house interior with water damage and structural damage. My only viable solution was to vent the bottom of the soffits … but how? Out came the ‘sacrifice play’ with my 18 Volt Ryobi Skill Saw while perched two stories up on a ladder in a New England January slicing into the soffit. The ice cold water ran over the saw down the inside of my sleeve on down through the snow pants and into my boot! Gallons of it!

But it worked!!!

Once all the affected soffits had been vented I blew out the saw with compressed air and a shot or two of WD40.
That saw continued to provide Yoman’s service for yet another decade before I finally killed it buy wearing out the carbon brushes.

If I’d been dumb (stupid) enough to use a corded saw I’d have throughly cooked my own goose and would have been pushing up daisies.

Thank you cordless tool!

Best Regards
Over Easy

[NiceAft]

Okay, now THATS a novel approach!!!

A gubber (no disrespect intended but I lack the vocabulary to describe it any other way) insulated cordless drill in a ziplock underwater!!!
Actually that might actually verge on GENIUS!!!
Absolute out of the box GENIUS!!!

I love it!

I’m glad it worked for you and that you were able to solve your problem issue.

Personally the era of cordless power tools have saved so many people from the injury, damage and fatalities associated with corded power tools that I hav3 personally seen, never mind the ones I’ve heard about, including my own.

Years ago I had ice dams on my roof that were driving water under the shingles and into the soffits threatening the house interior with water damage and structural damage. My only viable solution was to vent the bottom of the soffits … but how? Out came the ‘sacrifice play’ with my 18 Volt Ryobi Skill Saw while perched two stories up on a ladder in a New England January slicing into the soffit. The ice cold water ran over the saw down the inside of my sleeve on down through the snow pants and into my boot! Gallons of it!

But it worked!!!

Once all the affected soffits had been vented I blew out the saw with compressed air and a shot or two of WD40.
That saw continued to provide Yoman’s service for yet another decade before I finally killed it buy wearing out the carbon brushes.

If I’d been dumb (stupid) enough to use a corded saw I’d have throughly cooked my own goose and would have been pushing up daisies.

Thank you cordless tool!

Best Regards
Over Easy

Come come OverEasy,

After reading your many posts on this forum, I believe you to be a very sensible, prudent member of this forum. Now you expect us to believe there was even a slight chance that you would have used a corded tool under those circumstances,

[pitchpolehobie]

Normally new guys buy pizza for everyone but I think maybe we buy you a pizza...


Hold my beer I need to go try my HF drill underwater....

[LakeMac26C]

Another odd thing happened during this repair. When i put ONLY the battery end of the drill in the water, the drill stopped working while wet. So i put ONLY the motor side in the water, which has no IC's and it also stopped working while wet. An old break in technique for r/c brushed motors was to immerse the motor in water and run them for a minute or two hooked up to battery. This supposedly helps hone the brushes in a closer tolerance than breaking it in dry. But with the drill with a brushed motor, the drill stopped working on either end. And i wouldn't bet a bitcoin that HF put some kind of water safety circuitry in it either. A bit of a mystery.

You should also know that my "cheap" drill is a $20 Warrior brand from HF and my "good" drill is the Hercules brand also from HF. Im pretty sure they only sell Hercules tools to contractors so I must have impressed the girl at the counter because she let me buy it anyway

[LakeMac26C]

I owe a lot of people a lot of pizza for a lot of reasons! Hopefully this advice helps settle my score a little bit.

I can picture your adventure on a frozen roof with a cordless saw perfectly! Hey, they over engineer everything for gubbers like us anyway, right???

[Brian]

Clever idea. I used a hand drill when I had to drill a hole underwater.

https://www.amazon.com/Fiskars-85116984 ... r=8-3&th=1

[LakeMac26C]

Yes. I considered using a hand drill underwater, but they are more expensive and i couldn't figure out how to put enough pressure on the drill bit while essentially weightless underwater. If i bear down on the drill bit, the force would just push me away from the boat with the same, opposite force. The cordless drill let me grasp the CB and let the stepper drill do all the work.

Im also surprised the conformal coating didn't protect the drill circuitry better. Maybe i missed some spots in hard to reach areas. The battery did have a charger circuit and BMS built into the pack that was hard to reach.

[Russ]

Absolutely brilliant!

I admit I've purchased some HF disposable tools as well.

Hopefully, your experience will help others in a similar situation.