Euro-Style Mixer Better than a Drill for Drywall Mud, Thinset, Mortar and Epoxy Coatings
I once traveled to the small town of Ripoll in northern Spain to see something I didn’t think existed in Europe any more. Nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains you’ll find a small, neat and attractive factory that’s been manufacturing machinery and power tools since the 1880s, despite the fact that most of this work now happens in Asia. One of the tools that caught my eye was a hand-held electric mixer for making small batches of mortar, plaster and drywall compound. I’d never seen anything like it. Masonry construction is common all across Europe, and that’s why this kind of mixer has been very popular there for a long time. Our wood frame building heritage here in Canada is the reason why this tool has never been marketed in this country before, but I’m glad to now see it on this side of the Atlantic.
The DM800E by Freud and related models that I’ve used are in direct competition with the kind of large, hand-held electric drills 
that have been used for small-batch mixing here in Canada. The DM800E offers three technical advantages:
- First, it’s about half the price of any drill large enough to compete with it for mixing work.
- Second, the two-handled design is much easier to control when mixing than the pistol grip of a drill.
- Third, the variable speed dial (150 to 550 RPM) is connected to internal circuitry that keeps output RPMs constant, regardless of the load.
The DM800E also includes a standard, three-jaw Jacob key-style chuck that auger bits for boring holes in wood. At $130, it’s a surprising amount of machine for the money.