Dealmonger: DuraGear Flexible Shaft Screwdriver for $8
By Gordon DeWitte
“No batteries, no electricity needed!” Okay, so the video is a bit overboard*, but $8 for the DuraGear Flexible Shaft Screwdriver seems reasonable (especially with free shipping, if you remember to specifically click that option during checkout). Five sockets and six bits store in the handle, with eight more bits in a ring at the bottom of the screwdriver and one in the tip. The flexible shaft retracts, and the base of the handle includes a built-in slot for driving cup hooks.
*Although it did mention that the New York Times selected the screwdriver as the “Most Useful Tool of the Millennium” in a Y2K supplement.
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Screwdriver Feature [New York Times]
August 19th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I got this as a gift from a well meaning relative at christmas, it is as cheap and as plastic as you would expect, but fairly robust and usefull as a screwdriver with lots of handy bits in the base.
However the flexishaft has got stuck in the extended position, and as with the case with all of this type of thing there is no way you can get enough torque when its extended and lodged in a hard to reach spot, as you still need to keep two fingers at the head to stop the shaft flexing too much, you are better off putting together as many socket extensions and knuckles as you can.
Not really worth it for that one hard to reach screw.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:04 am
[...] researching the DuraGear Flexible Shaft Screwdriver, I saw a reference to this book by Witold Rybczyski and wound up getting a copy through [...]
August 29th, 2009 at 9:27 am
The basic retractable flex extension design is a fairly common tool, every one from Asia as far as I can tell. Durapro makes one that looks as good as any: http://www.durapro.com/durapro/hand_tools/02_103.html .