SDS Drill recommendation please

[Skipweasel]

Soldering iron and multimeter.

They've saved me over a thousand pounds in the last twelve months or so.

[Skipweasel]

Oh, and polyurethane glue.

[The Medway Handyman]

For me it has to be the impact driver.

Its interesting when I work for blokes who 'do a bit of DIY'. When they first see the SDS drilling concrete like it was butter they are gobsmacked. Similarly, when they see an impact drive putting in a 4" screw with no apparent effort, they can't believe their eyes.

Most places sell these tools, but few if any actually promote the concepts.

I found out about both on this NG & I'm very glad I did.

Very temped by the new hybrid Panasonic EY7840LZ2S cordless drill driver & SDS all in one. Shame its so expensive :-(

[Adrian C]

Whoops, now you've said it!

Watch out next year for Lidl's store leaflet advertising ...

"their HS steel bits are very good"

Mike - diybanter.co.uk

Or was it ALDI up to that trick :-)

[Chris Wilson]

Skipweasel wrote in news:MPG.27ae125485cd8f9b989787@188.40.43.213:

Hammer!

... and a Bigger Hammer !!

... and last but by no means least a Very Big Hammer !!!

[Moonraker]

Well I asked for help and I got it, many thanks. Now I have to make the decision.

[Skipweasel]

Ah - a believer in Percussive Maintenance. A man after my own heart.

[Scott M]

Or trying to drill holes in awkward positions; under floors, etc. I wouldn't like to try more than 2kg when you're trying to do something one handed.

My votes: Bosch Green & Bosch Blue. Both 3 action for about £100. In fact the blue one came with a free blue drill/driver. The green one was only retired because I buggered it up after taking it apart - I thought I would treat it to a good clean out having done a lot of work in dusty environs. Turned out it was fine inside :-(

[Chris Wilson]

Skipweasel wrote in news:MPG.27ae2235d71fd06098978b@188.40.43.213:

Got it from my dad, "If a big hammer will do the job a bigger one will do it better"

He ended his working life as a hydraulics/pneumatics engineer ... his "clockmakers spanner" was around 18" long, he used to complain that it was to small for real jobs :)

In retirement though he made various scale models under a magifying glass using tools the size of cocktail sticks.

[John Rumm]

I suppose there is the difference between a decent jigsaw and most peoples experience of them...

The Fein multimaster (and clones) as a "how do I get out of this situation?" tools.

[dom]

I think a key difference is that many building-trade professionals go to trade shows and/or demo days at their builders merchants - and the major pro tools manufacturers go there to sell 'em stuff.

The same doesn't happen for keen/very keen diy'ers. They are stuck with the know-nothing salespeople in the diy sheds.

I bought my first (and only!) sds drill from the BM's 12 years ago - and got to try out an impact driver at a trade show when they were fairly new - and bought one asap.

There's nothing stopping keen diy'ers going to Interbuild (at the NEC

- free entry, high parking charges) and having the same opportunity to try stuff out.

[djc]

There is no problem so big that it cannot be solved by a bigger hammer.

[MuddyMike]

Sorry, that should read.

"their HS steel bits are very good" Mike - uk.d-i-y newsgroup.

[The Medway Handyman]

Ain't that the truth. I'd given up on them until I got a Makita - on Mr Rumms advice IIRC.

'Its a jigsaw Jim, but not as we know it'.

True, still find the blades expensive though.

[Lobster]

Other considerations apart, I suppose it's a bit like buying a car: if you want to get from A to B, you travel by Ford or Ferrari, and you'll still reach B just the same.

David

[Mathew Newton]

From my experience I couldn't disagree more.

Mathew

[Alan Braggins]

"Violence should always be a last resort. If you have to resort to something else afterwards, you didn't use enough violence."

[Steve Firth]

If you like the sensation of exploding parts of Chinese drill passing your ears and embedding in your forearms, who am I to stop you from your simple pleasures?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Well, many of the so called quality brands are also now made in China. As with so much else.

Any power tool ever made will eventually fail. How long this takes depends on use/abuse. For ordinary hobby use many cheaper tools *are* satisfactory, in that they will do the job.

If a tool explodes and causes injury - sue the supplier. They are the ones who specify the quality of the tools they sell - not the factory who makes them.

If I were to give a general opinion, it would be to buy all cheap power tools from Lidl. In my experience they are better specified at the price than those from the likes of B&Q. I have several where their use didn't justify buying a quality brand, and have been disappointed by none.

[Steve Firth]

Yes, but you did snip the mention of "cheap Chinese versions".

They may do the job. That's not the same as they will do the job.

I would rather not have the tool explode in use. For the avoidance of doubt every NuTool SDS drill that I tried either suffered from a motor failure or the chuck exploded in use. The store where I got the tool was very good about replacing them, but life's too short and the nature of the explosion of the chucks with ball bearings, springs and shrapnel flying around did mean that the probability of inury was there. There's not much satisfaction from sueing a distributor when I don't want to be injured in the first place.

Also many of these distributors are fly by night operations. There may well be no one to sue by the time the tool fails, even if that failure is within a year.

I'd say that for safety critical tools such as drills don't buy the crap clones. OK they may work, but the saving is going to look damned trivial if injury results from the tool's failure.