Sometimes, being The Manly Housekeeper just isn’t that fun. I figured I would be cleaning the bathtub Cinderella-style forever. That is, until my friend Jordan told me how he cleans his tub – with a scrub brush on the end of his cordless drill. I was intrigued, to say the least. I made a couple of modifications to Jordan’s design to make a permanent brush attachment, but the idea is all his.
Scroll down to learn how to make your own power scrub brush, and view video of the brush in action.
Step 1. Assemble your required items. You will need a round scrub brush, a 1 1/2 inch-long lag screw, a nut driver, and a cordless drill with a drill bit slightly smaller than the diameter of your screw threads.
Step 2. Examine your scrub brush. I used a cheap $2 Scotch Brite scrubber. I popped the top off the scrubber and drilled the two pieces separately, to make sure I was drilling as close to the the center as I could with as much precision as possible.
Step 3: Mark the center of the the top part of the brush ...
... And then drill a hole.
Step 4. mark off another hole and drill it in the bottom half of the scrubber. I was careful not to drill all the way through, and get my drill bit tangled in the brush.
Step 5. Snap the two parts of the scrub brush together, then screw the lag bolt into the hole.
Step 6: Switch the drill bit for the nut driver in your drill, and your manly scrub brush will be complete. Now any time I want to clean the tub I can just pop on the scrub brush attachment.
How well does this attachment actually work? Pretty well, though it’s probably not a replacement for old-fashioned elbow grease. Because the brush is only held onto the nut driver by a magnet, the brush can fall off the drill if you aren’t holding the drill perpendicular to the scrubbing surface. I got the hang of using the brush pretty quickly, however, and the high RPMs certainly remove soap scum quickly!
Provided you already have a drill and drill bit, the equipment is not expensive, either – less than $6.
