Buying a new drill

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:04:21 +0100, Dave Plowman strung together this:

I wouldn''t expect it would have any rating at all for core cutting.

Reply to
Lurch
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I have to put my hand up to being guilty of thoughtless stupidity with regard to a similar Screwfix SDS drill some time back...

I use power tools day in, day out, as I have for the past twenty-odd years at work. I have possessed for a good deal of this time a "lightweight" Hitachi SDS drill ( with no roto-stop ) - which has a built-in clutch. This operates at a point before the drill wrecks itself, or me.

My shiny new 4KG (I think!) roto-stop SDS arrived from Screwfix whilst I was working in a gutted old stone house. The stone was very soft, and I didn't have any suitable chisels, so I popped in a 16mm drill bit, turned the rotation off, applied drill to stone, and hit the "go" button. The drill bit disappeared a couple of inches into the stone very rapidly, so I stopped the drill, engaged the rotary function on the drill, and without a care squeezed the switch.

It was fortunate that I had a good grip on the drill, as I rapidly found out two things - the drill bit was firmly embedded into the stone - no real surprise - and the drill didn't come with a clutch

- very much a surprise. This latter point meant that I spent a couple of days mooching about gently wiggling my wrists. I still cannot believe that these drills that are low geared, thus high on torque, are sold bereft of a safety clutch, which is standard on non-budget versions of the same type of drill.

They should at the very least have a warning about the lack of a clutch, and the safety implications thereof, in bold typeface on the packaging and instructions. I anticipate some grief regarding the stupidity of my actions, some of which I bestowed upon myself at the time, and if the SDS drill was new on the market, then again, my fault entirely. But as the drill in question followed many others to the market, if it had a serious safety flaw - which it does - it was irresponsible not to make the point clear. I think that some of the blurb relating to the original drill that I purchased from screwfix intimated that it had a clutch...

Enough of my rambling.....

Reply to
Will

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