I have to agree with MichaelG re SCR based speed controllers. Back in the late 1960's/early 1970's I bought a kit, possibly from J. Bull, which was even simpler than Michael's version consisting, from memory, a SCR, diode, capacitor and variable resistor. There may have been a couple more components but there certainly were no transistors.
As far as I can remember, it worked by comparing the drill back emf with the voltage developed across the capacitor: when the capacitor voltage exceeded the back emf, the SCR was triggered. The result was that under low speed, low load conditions, the drill skip cycled, but as soon as a load was applied, skip cycling stopped with the drill then receiving much more power, effectively up to about 70% of maximum I think was the quoted value.
My present mains powered hand held drill is an ancient 400W Black & Decker which has a 2 speed mechanical gearbox, allied to a pistol grip variable speed controller. As far as I can determine, this speed controller works in a similar manner to the one described above: certainly it is capable of generating quite high power at low speeds.
I have over the years had a lot of B&D kit, and one thing that B&D have always said is that if the temperature starts to rise, simply remove the drill from the work with it running. The internal fan will then cool down the internals after a few minutes of off-load running.
Regards,
Peter G. Shaw
Edited By Peter G. Shaw on 10/12/2014 12:32:59