Ah, the joys of the Tiger Saw. I've always been impressed by the voiceover talent that Porter - Cable got to do their sponsor's bit on This Old House: Porter - Cable. The Woodworker's Choice. Spat with such bass authority that I always said, "Yes, sir!" to the television, and vowed that one day I too would have Porter - Cable tools so that I could enjoy their obvious testicle - enlarging benefits.
So I bought a Porter - Cable reciprocating Tiger Saw a couple of years ago, and this evening I used it to cut up a gas dryer.
You heard me.
It's one of the many things we learned when we bought this house: if the previous owners have an "extra" appliance stashed somewhere, it leaves when they do, no matter what kind of "good shape" it's in. We've had their old gas dryer next to the furnace for over two years. It wasn't worth fixing to us, so it just hung out, taking up space and being too much of a hassle to get rid of. Awhile ago I took a hammer to it to relieve the stress caused by the troublesome installation of a new dishwasher, but beyond that and the disciplinary effect my savage attack had on the other appliances, its utility was limited. Our annual Large Item Trash Day Pickup doesn't accept appliances. We don't have a pickup truck, so we can't haul it to the dump and even if we could, it would cost us money. Now, during a sudden burst of post - flood basement reorganizing, I wanted to reclaim that space. What to do?
Chop it up into small bits and send it out with the ordinary trash over several weeks, that's what.
It's amazing how little there is to a dryer. A big rotating drum, a motor, some wires, a few solenoid switches, a pipe for the natural gas to burn in, all in a sheet - metal enclosure that was no match for the Tiger Saw's 2,600 strokes per minute of 10 - amp reciprocating fury. Our new washer and dryer shuddered in terror as the blade shrieked through the sides of the doomed appliance and the stench of hot metal filled the air. I wrenched the drum bearing from its socket and smeared the spattered grease on my face, so that our aging refrigerator would see me and know that I am to household appliances what Hannibal Lecter was to crass people.
Now, all is quiet... screws and stray bits of wire and plastic litter the floor. The dismembered dryer corpse leans up against the wall of the electric abattoir that is our basement.
I'm telling you: Porter - Cable. Nothing like it.
