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by Peter Brett - November 2008
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01444 440188
A Winning Formula?
Two prime candidates to illustrate what I mean are reviewed below.
The Silverline 30 LED Rechargeable Inspection Lamp, to give it its full title, strikes me as a very good idea in the first place, and secondly it works so well that it makes a valuable addition to many a toolkit. Professional mechanics or kitchen fitters for example, and all the way to DIY car buffs and house improvers would find this tool a godsend.
I, and I am sure many others, are familiar with the problem of getting enough light onto a working space. The traditional answer is the lamp on a long lead. Nice and bright, but also hot, very glary and difficult to position safely as it has to have a wire cage around the incandescent bulb. In my experience, I have never been that happy with a hot bulb near my face as I lie on my back in a kitchen cupboard trying to find a leak. At a stroke, this light solves quite a few issues. The LEDs are not hot and give off as much light as a 40watt bulb. Being cordless, it can be used outside, in the rain or in the shed, caravanning, camping etc where mains electricity may not be easily available. As it is also long and slim with a hook on one end it is easy to hang from something or lie on its back for maximum lighting effectiveness.
Some might argue that you might just as well use a torch. I know that there are some very nice torches out there that would do a good job, what they usually don’t have though is the diffused light that 30 LEDs give that is more useful to work by.
On the downside the separate charger takes a few hours to charge the battery, but since the LED light lasts for about eight hours on one charge (which is actually a whole working day) as long as you remember to charge it up after use you shouldn’t run out of light.
A small plastic add-on base to enable the light to stand on its end would also be a plus. Perhaps Silverline?
A 12v in-car charger is also supplied so it is a real possibility that this light could be stored in the boot ready for road emergencies.
Switching the light on and off is done via the enclosed safety rocker switch.
In my view, Silverline has managed to source a product that is sensibly priced (£20.96 retail) that has thousands of potential uses for householders, DIYers and professionals alike. I hope Silverline doesn’t mind that its sample needs to have a slightly longer “testing” in my workshop and house.
A completely different product but one that is just as useful in many ways is the Heavy Duty Plaster Mixer.I have used and owned a number of small cement mixers and at the moment I am grateful that I don’t have one. Apart from the minimal use I might make of it now, I find them bulky and difficult to store.
In my youth, on the plains of Africa, (don’t ask!) I mixed up many a mortar mix by hand and the experience, while making a man out of me, is not one I prefer to repeat. For many jobbing builders and house improvers, the purchase of a real cement mixer and the need to store its bulk somewhere is prohibitive. Also, they don’t fit that well into the back of the often seen, carefully and neatly packed back of a white van. On the other hand, for a mere £75 or so, and a large plastic mixing bucket, you can have the ability to mix up a half a bag or more of plaster, light mortar or even, as I proved a small concrete mix.
Let me confess. I did try the Silverline to mix up a small batch of plaster, and it worked really well, providing a smooth consistent mix in a Gorilla tub in a very short time. But that plaster went into a bag to be sent to the tip. What I really needed was a small mix of concrete post mix for fixing a pair of fence posts needing to be replaced after the recent windy weather down here on the coast. I expected the mixer to strain a bit with the full bag of post mix I put into the Gorilla tub, but the soft start and two speed geared motor was fully able to cope with the task. What’s more, the mix was able to be controlled quite easily by using the trigger to vary the speed as it became more liquid and plastic and therefore settled to the bottom of the tub more easily.
At the end of the process it was a simple matter to detach the paddle and swish it clean under a powerful tap, rather than begin the process of swabbing out a mixing drum. The Gorilla tub takes care of itself. Just let it dry a bit and the leftover bits of cement come off by themselves.
There will still be some users who want a more powerful and capacitous mixer, but for those needing just the odd small mix or two in a day’s work the Silverline offers a promising solution. With a mixing volume of 120 litres specified, it more than covers the need.
Airstream Communications