I've been looking at box sinkers and wonder if anyone has experience of the two types I've found.
The round cutter + square box finisher by Armeg and Quadcut
Get the multi tooth type it is far superior as I use 3 of them in different sizes.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Ray" saying something like:
What kind of life do you get from them in general and how do they cope with concrete block? The demo video shows them in light block, something like thermablock, which is more or less like spongecake.
Does about 25 holes into soft brickwork IME, and then suddenly stops working when it's gone blunt. Good if you're in a hurry. Extremely messy. The square box finisher part is completely useless -- use a chisel cutter SDS attachment instead which works very much better. (You can buy the circular cutter by itself without the box finisher.)
The picture of the ebay one is a different make, and doesn't seem to have the fully circular guide, which I would say is pretty essential as the pilot hole by itself won't hold the cutter in the right place in may types of brickwork.
I wouldn't buy a second-hand one from ebay -- it would probably be blunt.
Haven't used the other type.
I now use an SDS chisel. Magic! Go straight in all round the edge of the drawn rectangle then at an angle to take out the material. I think the person who invented SDS hammer tools should get a Nobel prize for d-i-y. Now there's an idea. Praps I post the suggestion - Nobel prizes for d-i-y. I also use a channeling tool for the conduits. Once you get the angle and pressure right, its like a hot knife through butter on cement block. Very very very very messy. Make sure partner is nowhere around till you filled five vacuum cleaner bags with dust afterwards. Mask up.
Peter Scott
And earmuffs - SDS on hammer is painfully noisy!
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) saying something like:
That's useful, ta. I might try the circular cutter and get a wide SDS chisel for finishing. The multi-tooth one looks interesting, but if it's not any good in concrete block it'd be just a waste of money. I have a couple of dozen single sockets to turn into doubles, in concrete block, so the idea of SDS chiselling all of them with a 15mm chisel didn't appeal much.
My experience is the opposite. The circular cutter makes too much mess to be of any use except on a building site. The square box is good for marking out the size and cleaning out the last bits on the side. The bulk of the work must be done with a normal chisel bit in the drill.
I do this too for a few. However, when I had ~25 to do, the box sinker was significantly faster (although that will depend on the material).
I said it was extremely messy, and my kitchen and bathroom was a building site when I was using the tool. I did use it in a furnished room with someone else holding the vacuum cleaner nossel an inch behind it and newspaper to catch the heavier rubble.
I found it just got stuck in the wall.
Finishing off is quickly done this way when you've got the circular hole sunk.
snip
I concur with Ed; Square box for marking out; variety of chisels 25mm plus brick chisel plus the angled 'skirting board chisel to flatten the back of the aperture.
But: the circular hole cutter grinds away at the face of the hole producing so much fine dust that one spends longer cleaning up than sinking the hole; using a chisel produces larger chunks, easy to clean up if a sheet of newspaper has been masking-tape applied below the aperture, together with a smaller quantity of fine dust that can be sucked off the wall if an assistant holds the hose of the vacuum cleaner.
The rotary type is messy - as in "angle grinder cutting a chase" messy. The others are ok in soft stuff.
For hard materials, I find a 25mm SDS chisel for cutting round the outline works well, then switch to a 40mm, for chopping out the content. Work from the centre to the sides of the box, and once the sides are to the required depth it is easy to level off the bit left in the middle. The wider chisel makes it easy enough to get a flat back to the cutout.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Grimly Curmudgeon saying something like:
Thanks all, for your replies. I finally bought an Armeg single box kit and a Dustbuddy plastic snail-shell like thing for dust extraction. I expect there's going to be some swearing.
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