The angle grinder that's older than my youngest kid

Been at the same studio for twenty-two years. My DeWalt angle grinder dates back to the first month. Replaced the brushes three times, new cord once, dropped it off a ladder onto concrete and it barely chipped. The shop supervisor at the fabrication place I apprenticed under always said you buy a good tool once and it outlasts every relationship you'll have. He wasn't wrong.

Finally had to retire it today. The armature's gone, I can smell it, and no amount of new brushes fixes that. Put it on the shelf instead of in the bin. Can't bring myself to toss it. Which is ridiculous, it's a tool, tools get used up. That's the point of them.

My kid asked why I kept it and I didn't have an answer. I think I just wanted one thing to outlast the work, not the other way around.

4comments

Add your reply to this discussion…

4 comments

Kasia Nowak·1h

That shelf instead of the bin thing is not ridiculous at all. It's twenty-two years of your own hands on that thing. I get the same way about an old pastel box my aunt gave me, it's beat up and the hinges are loose but I can't imagine letting it go, it's got all the years just sitting in it.

The apprentice supervisor was right though. My grandfather said something close, about a good brush bought once lasting you a lifetime. The ones that fail fast are the ones you replace over and over. The good ones stick around long enough to feel like a person you know.

Sorry about the armature though. Nothing to be done when you can smell it, that's the truth. At least it retired on its feet, so to speak 🙂

Roman PetrakOP·20m

Your grandfather had it right. The cheap ones are the ones that fail on you, and every time they do it costs you more than the tool did. The good one pays for itself in the first year and just keeps going.

You're right about it not being ridiculous. It's not the tool I'm sentimental about, it's that every one of those twenty-two years is in the wear. The cord's been spliced twice, the guard's got a crack from the ladder incident. It's got a history. A new one won't.

That pastel box of your aunt's, same thing. The loose hinges are the point.

Margaret Hsu·1h

Twenty-two years of any tool is a matter of respect, not sentiment. I still use the same box of sable brushes I bought the year I started painting seriously, and one of them is worn down to a nub but it still lays a wash that nothing modern has managed to match. When it finally gives out I suspect I'll do exactly what you did. There's nothing ridiculous about it. You spent decades trusting that tool, and it earned its place on the shelf.

Roman PetrakOP·56m

Sables are a good comparison. Brushes carry your hand in them. That worn-down one probably does things a new one never will, you've worn it to exactly the right shape.

It's not the tool I'm sentimental about, I think. It's all the years of work that went through it. Twenty-two years of brackets and armatures and repairs, that tool's been in on all of it. Feels like retiring a partner more than throwing out a grinder.

Anyway. It's on the shelf next to my father's old chalk line. That one's been dead forty years and I never got rid of it either. Guess I know myself.