Manufacturers put products to the test

Companies put new tools through rigorous tests to find out how long they will last.
The first power tool was invented by a woman. In the early 19th century, Tabitha Babbitt, a Shaker, came up with the idea for a circular saw, powered first by hand cranks and then by a water wheel.
The German manufacturer C & amp;E Fein developed the first portable electric power tool, a 16-pound drill, in 1895. But it was Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker Sr. who came up with the first power hand drill in 1914 in their Baltimore machine shop, taking the handle of a Colt automatic and adapting it to a motor and drill that one person could handle.
The fact that power tools can make almost anyone handy has made them a part of more and more households. And consumers want to make sure that they get the most for their money.
That's where product testing comes in.
Gary Van Deursen of Stanley Works in New Britain, Conn., said tool companies try to meet standards established by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
"We do things to try to extend the life of the tool," he said. "On hammers, we ring-temper the striking face, which means it won't chip."
Sometimes what gives out before the hammer is the user, so efforts have been made to minimize vibrations, Van Deursen said.
There are testing machines that fire nail guns until they won't fire anymore, that saw until the blade is too dull or breaks, or that keep pulling and retracting tape measures until they don't work anymore.
"Then we know what the life of the tool is," Van Deursen said.
'Life test': Power tools at Black & amp; Decker Corp. go through a "life test" long before they hit the market, according to Jeff Cooper, a product manager at the company's Towson, Md., plant.
There is another test closer to the tool's real application, in which a person will drill "X amount of holes in pine with a half-inch spade bit, then go on to a piece of metal and perform the same tasks, until you get failure," Cooper said.
Black & amp; Decker tests 20 samples of each tool, even though "statistically, we have to do six," he said.
It's a weeding-out process, Cooper said.
"We don't want anything that won't perform to get to the consumer," he said. "That's why our spec tests are higher than anything the end user can do."