Eight Unexpectedly Useful Drill Attachments

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No matter how handy or non-handy you are, there’s a good chance you have a power drill somewhere in your home (honestly, it should be part of any basic tool chest). They’re useful for a wide range of DIY projects, from screwing together furniture to more involved projects.

If you’ve only used the standard bits that come with your basic power drill, you’re missing out on a lot of usefulness—your power drill can actually work like several tools in one. Some of these uses are obvious, like screwdriver bits or a paint mixing attachment, but there are some truly unexpected drill attachments out there that can make even the cheapest electric drill an incredibly versatile and useful tool.

Paint sprayer

Paint sprayers can make paint jobs much faster and much easier to tackle, resulting in a nice, smooth finish without the tedious process of recharging paint brushes and rollers continuously. But if you don’t need one often, or only have to deal with small paint projects, having a paint spraying attachment gives you the ability to do pro-level painting whenever you need to. You can see the paint sprayer in action in this video, where it does a pretty solid job without the commitment of a dedicated sprayer.

Roller dryer

Painting is one of the cheapest and easiest upgrades you can make to any room in your home, but cleanup can be a pain. That’s especially true for paint rollers, which become frustratingly saturated with paint. A paint roller cleaner attachment for your drill makes cleanup incredibly fast and easy. You can see the process in this video—you spin the roller in a bucket to force as much paint out as possible, then you spin it in a bucket of water. The end result? A perfectly clean roller ready for the next job.

Log splitter

If you’ve got a wood-burning fireplace or stove at home, you already know that splitting logs can be a literal pain in your back. A wood-splitting drill attachment like this one makes it much, much easier once you get the hang of it (you can see one in action here).

Vent cleaner

There are a lot of hard ways to clean your dryer vent (and a lot of very wrong ways), but it needs to be part of the basic maintenance you do on a regular basis if you want your dryer to keep functioning at peak efficiency (and last as long as possible). If you have a power drill, just buy a vent cleaning kit like this one and you can have sparkling, clean vents in no time.

Metal cutter

Cutting sheet metal with a pair of manual shears or snips can be a slow and even painful process (those edges are sharp), and cutting straight lines is a real challenge. A metal-cutting attachment like this one makes the job a lot easier. How much easier? Just watch a similar attachment slice through some sheet metal like butter in this video.

Reciprocating saw

Buying new power tools for one-time use is a waste of money, and even having a tool like a reciprocating saw on hand for the occasional need means you’ve got something taking up space and requiring maintenance with very little payoff. Believe it or not, you can buy an attachment that turns your drill into a very effective reciprocating saw, perfect for when you need to quickly saw through something in the middle of a project but don’t need to own a saw full-time.

Auger

Like to garden? Need to sink some fence posts? An auger attachment for your drill and your job just got a lot easier. Your drill can power surprisingly enormous augers, actually, though if you’re going to be doing heavy-duty fence post drilling you’ll probably be better off with a dedicated auger instead. But for gardening and the occasional post-sinking, a drill attachment is an economical and effective choice.

Pump

The worst time to realize that you really need a pump is when you really need a pump. Luckily, this attachment turns any power drill into a transfer pump capable of draining or transferring liquids through a standard garden hose. Whether you need to pump fuel out of a tank or get rid of some standing water, this little attachment can save you the trouble and cost of having a utility pump on hand.