Our building consultant Mike Jackson is back with a few wise words on DIY gadgets.

I had a mate once who just loved gadgets.

He was married for seven years (weren't we all) and every birthday, Christmas and anniversary he bought his wife a different sort of gadget for cutting cheese. That makes twenty one cheese-cutting gadgets. Now I like gadgets and I love cheese but I understood entirely when he had to go to hospital to have the twenty first cheese cutter surgically removed.

It's a big mistake to get obsessed with gadgets, some are excellent effort-saving devices and others just silly.

Great gadgets
The electric router was an optional gadget once, but now no serious carpenter would be without one. It has virtually replaced a whole swag of specialist planes, like the rebate plane and the plough plane.

Then there's the jigsaw. Next to the electric drill this one-time gadget is the home handyman's prince of power tools.

The combination square, the retractable tape and the post level must be close to the top of the list when it comes to gadgets for measuring and levelling. I can remember my dad doing all his long measuring with a fold-up six-foot ruler or staff. The retractable tape brought the curtain down on that elegant piece of equipment.

Improved gadgets
Speaking of dad, I bought him one of the first domestic Yankee or pump action screwdrivers when they came out. It was only a short one, about nine inches long, but it worked a treat. They revolutionised the screwdriving world and professional carpenters could be seen with industrial strength jobs, three foot long!

Then some genius came up with a variable speed trigger for an electric drill and, in the face of the screw gun assault, the Yankees beat the retreat.

Both fret and coping saws have all but seen their last days due to the arrival of the aforementioned jigsaw. The jigsaw's extra cutting power, however, has probably led to the preservation of the lids of countless cigar boxes, the fret saw's natural prey.

Old favourites
There are some tools that I think will never be replaced by a new, slick gadget.

My absolute favourite is the spoke shave. Fair enough, it did get upgraded (not necessarily for the better in my opinion) by the metal job with the little wheels to adjust the blades. However, it still remains one of the simplest, most effective, and if I may use the word again, elegant of all tools.

You often find the old wooden ones, which are adjusted by tapping the little vertical horns on the ends of the blades, sold as curios in second-hand shops. If you don't own one then pay out the ten or so dollars and add a bit of class to your tool kit! The spoke shave, of course, was originally devised for making wooden wheel spokes. They have a fine, controllable shaving action - ideal for small furniture jobs or for situations where space is too restricted to use a plane.

And if you adjust them properly and have a light touch, I bet they could even be used for slicing cheese.

See you next time DIYers,
Mike Jackson

(Look for Mike's DIY column syndicated in newspapers around the country)