Budget drill/driver or Makita body only?

[David]

Oh, and Amazon is playing silly buggers at the moment.

My two venerable B&D 12V drills are nearing the end of their battery life. I don't have the enthusiasm to re-cell the batteries and a replacement battery looks to be over £30.

So I am looking at what I can get to provide extra drills to avoid constant swapping of bits for common tasks. For instance at the moment I am fitting skirting boards with screws so I need to:

Drill hole in board Countersink (and the drill/countersink combination is proving useless Drill hole in wall Screw in

Now I can do the last two with my Site drill (18V NiCd) and my Makita impact driver (bought body only to share the Site batteries).

I was using the two B&D drills for the easy bits - drill and counter sink MDF - but battery life is very poor. Come the revolution I may be able to stretch the battery by using the Site intelligent charger but again this will take time from other tasks.

So - I can buy one (or even two) cheapo drill/drivers to replace the B&Ds or perhaps buy a Makita body for around £50 to use the third NiCd battery from my Site.

I assume even the cheapest 14.4V drill will out perform my old B&Ds.

Any suggestions, or any really good deals?

drill/92980 looks half way decent.

Oh, and on the silly buggers front the Screwfix site is listing a clearance item

drill-driver/21639 which looks a good deal at £50 but there doesn't seem to be any stock anywhere. I was checking to see what matched my Site drill from 2010 and I find that it is still listed by Screwfix although I am pretty sure it has been out of stock for four to five years by now. So it looks as though the site offers stuff which is out of stock and may never come back in. There seems no way to place an order for them to get an item into stock for you.

Not the best of days for research - never known Amazon go down before.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Update - just ordered

because it seemed so cheap.

Now waiting to find the hidden flaw. From the specification it seems to be marginally better that my Site drill

- probably the year after model.

At £33.77 for a similar drill to my current one it seemed to good to refuse. We shall see.

Still looking for a cheap spare drill for light work, though.

Argos offers some cheap crap such as

but do I really want something which takes 3-5 hours to recharge?

Cheers

Dave R

[GB]

Are you dead against corded? Cheap as chips, and no batteries to go t*ts-up. If it's only occasional use, such as you describe, is it really such an issue to lug an extension lead round?

Just a thought.

[Chris French]

In message , David writes

How about this, reduced to £60.

The blurb doesn't say, but I assume it's one battery at the price. But charge times should be fairly quick (

[steve.n]

snip

10mm chuck?

[David]

Max in Wood / Steel / Masonry : 36 / 13 / 13 mm

so at least 36mm chuck implied.

[polygonum]

Have you ever seen a hand-held electric drill with a 36mm or larger chuck?

At most it might imply a 13mm chuck to take a standard all-parallel (no stepping) twist drill.

[michael adams]

A standard chuck capable of taking a 36mm flat/spade bit or a standard 35 mm hinge or Forstner bit with a standard 6mm ish - flatted or stepped shaft,

michael adams

...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Lidl have an 18v Li-ion one tomorrow for £40. You're unlikely to get better value anywhere.

[GMM]

Blimey - that's a good deal. I almost wish I needed one...

[fred]

In article , David writes

Looks like you bought at the right time:

[David]

Thanks - will give that a go.

Then I will have to force myself to dispose of the old drills. :-(

[David]

O.K. - went today and got a hammer drill/driver for £39.99. All the cordless circular saws had already gone!

It always pays to read the manual, as there is a second battery available for £15.99 including shipping. Ordered one, so really I've bought a two battery drill for £55.98. Seems a solid bit of kit, but not as well balanced as the Makita.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Well, it has arrived and looks very similar to my other drill (Site) apart from the colour and the chuck. The Makita has a self-locking chuck whilst the Site has a twist lock with two moving parts which doesn't seem as efficient as the self-locking (which was also on my old B&Ds as well as the new Lidl drill).

Anyway, I have been really pleased with the Site drill so I hope this one does at least as well.

Now that I have three bodies (site, Makita, Makita impact driver) and three batteries I am starting to contemplate getting one extra battery. Will this spending never end??

Cheers

Dave R

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Thanks for the heads up. Bit better than my small Lidl drill (very nice) which cost 30 quid complete, but a spare battery 40 quid. ;-)