Ryobi Multi Tool Metal Cutting Blade, a DP103L Drill Press, and a Printer Offline Problem: Buying for Value

On a Tuesday morning in April 2024, the ops manager asked me to clean up the workshop and the print corner before a client visit. It didn't sound like a big deal. It turned into a two-week reminder that the cheapest purchase is often the most expensive one.

I'm the office administrator for a 48-person product design firm. I manage roughly $40,000 a year in office and shop purchases across 9 vendors. When I took over purchasing in 2020, the person before me gave me one rule: buy the cheapest thing that meets the spec. That rule sounded practical. It failed me twice that month.

The Blade That Should Have Been Simple

The workshop project involved cutting aluminum angle to build a wall-mounted stand for our printer and a small shelf for paper supplies. The metal was not heavy—1/16-inch aluminum angle, maybe 8 feet total. A handheld multi-tool could handle it if we had the right metal cutting blade.

I needed 10 blades. I walked past a generic 10-pack of oscillating blades for $39 and picked it up. The box said they worked on metal. It didn't say they worked well. That $39 pack seemed like a good save against the Ryobi multi tool metal cutting blade, which was about $8.50 each. I bought the generic pack and felt smart for about a day.

The first two cuts were fine. The third one went slow. By the fifth cut, the blade was visibly dull and the aluminum was starting to burn. The bracket came out 3/16 of an inch off because I had to push harder to get through a corner, and the piece shifted. The whole stand wobbled.

The rework cost us one new piece of aluminum ($24), a replacement bracket from the local hardware store ($18), and two hours of the workshop tech's time. At his loaded rate, that was roughly $98. Total: $140. The $39 generic pack ended up costing $179. I bought one Ryobi multi tool metal cutting blade afterward. It cut through the remaining aluminum without burning, and the next bracket went in flat.

That was my penny-wise moment. I saved a small amount at the register and paid more in rework and time.

What I should have done differently: asked the person doing the work. We didn't have a formal request and approval process for shop consumables, so I ordered based on a photo and a quick “metal cutting blade” note. I should have added one simple question: how many cuts and in what material? We do that now.

The Drill Press I Almost Skipped

The same project needed a small drill press for mounting holes in the brackets. The old benchtop drill we used was too sloppy for a clean 1/4-inch hole pattern.

I could have ordered a generic bench drill press for around $120. The upside was $80 in savings. The downside was a wobbling spindle and a table that didn't stay square. I kept asking myself: is $80 worth potentially redoing every bracket? The expected value said no.

I decided to spend more and order the Ryobi DP103L drill press. It was not the cheapest option, but the DP103L had the table size we needed, a real adjustable depth stop, and a rotating bit capacity that matched our work. More importantly, I could get replacement parts locally if something broke. That last point mattered to me after 5 years of managing vendor relationships.

It was not an impulsive splurge—I compared total cost, not ticket price. If the $120 drill press lasted one project and then wobbled through every hole it touched, it would cost more in wasted material than the $80 difference up front.

The DP103L probably won't appear on anyone's “cheap tools” list. It doesn't need to. It drilled perfectly straight holes for this project, and I haven't thought about it since.

The Printer Offline Problem and the Phone Picture Printer Question

While the workshop was being put back together, the print corner became its own little nightmare. We have one printer that was supposed to serve 48 people. For months, it would drop off the network at random. At least once a week, someone would stop me and ask: why is my printer showing offline.

I would run the usual fix—restart the print spooler, check the port, update the driver. The printer usually came back. Then it would drop again two days later. It got so bad that departments started asking for a dedicated phone picture printer, because the main unit would never show up when someone tried to print a photo from their phone. I didn't want to add another device to an already messy setup, but I understood why they asked.

The old printer was also a hand-me-down with no mobile printing support. Oh, and the network card would fall asleep and refuse to wake up. The “offline” message was misleading—the machine was physically on, but the print connection was gone. That's when I stopped treating it as an IT issue instead of a procurement issue.

We replaced it with a current small office printer. It does direct phone printing, so the phone picture printer request disappeared. And the “why is my printer showing offline” question has basically faded away.

During the changeover, I wanted to get rid of the old printer and the half-used toner cartridges. I checked the store's drop-off rules first—per the FTC's Green Guides (ftc.gov), “recyclable” claims can depend on local access, so it's worth confirming. Then I took everything to Staples. Staples printer recycling accepted the machine and the cartridges, and it didn't cost us anything.

One side note about that same corner: we send a lot of invoices through USPS. I looked at the USPS Business Mail 101 page on usps.com. According to USPS, a standard letter needs to be between 3-1/2 by 5 inches and 6-1/8 by 11-1/2 inches, with thickness under 1/4 inch. The First-Class letter rate went to $0.73 in January 2025, per usps.com/stamps, so envelope size mistakes are more annoying than they used to be.

What I'll Do Different

The lesson wasn't “buy Ryobi for everything.” That would be just as lazy as “buy the cheapest for everything.” The deeper point is to think about the cost of a bad outcome.

For me, $39 in blade savings turned into $140 in rework. The $120 drill press could have cost me a whole production fixture. And the office printer was never a printer problem—it was a decision to keep using a machine that didn't fit our workflow. That put the responsibility on me as the buyer, not on the IT guy or the person standing at the machine.

My checklist now looks like this:

• How often will this product actually be used?
• What happens if it fails in the middle of a job?
• Can I get service or a replacement without a long wait?
• What's the total cost after rework, wasted time, and frustration?

I still buy generic trash bags, copy paper, and other consumables. But for anything that does actual work—cutting, drilling, or printing—I don't ignore the boring costs of downtime and rework. At least, that's been my experience managing this office for the past five years.