Karl from Poughkeepsie, NY writes…

I was recently faced with a dilemma. All of my RC engines are drill start, and my trusty old 9.6 Volt cordless drill’s battery died. So after a quick check of eBay, I realized I could replace the battery for a mere $40.00. Since I could purchase a NEW cordless drill for that price (which I did), I decided against the $40.00 battery purchase. So my dilemma was that I had a perfectly good old cordless drill, but no way to power it. It seemed a shame to just throw it away, so I put my engineering skills to work and came up with Frankendrill. I had an extra 7.2 volt stick battery lying around (who doesn’t!), so I figured I could power the drill with it. I simply used some electrical tape to secure the battery to the drill handle. I then cut the stock connector off and replaced those leads with ¼” blade connectors. The blade connectors then slid into the stock battery terminal receptacles. I thought the 7.2V battery wouldn’t provide enough juice to power the drill, but it actually works great. The drill still has enough torque to start all of my big block engines! And the best part is that the drill battery can now be charged in 15 minutes as opposed to 10 hours for the stock battery and wall charger. After all, there is nothing worse then getting ready to bash and not be able to start your nitro engine! (If the editors are interested in this article, I can provide images of Frankendrill)