Fitting shelving, tough going...

[Marcus Fox]

Rather old house, maybe 40's, fitting shelving in between two chimneys. Drilling into the chimney wall with my Netto battery powered drill is rather tough going, drilling into masonry, so borrow my neighbour's mains electric Black and Decker. Couple of holes as expected, like a hot knife through butter, but others have been more difficult, and have to lean against the drill to get it to go anywhere. But thought I'd better stop as I didn't want to snap the bit when it was spinning that fast. Only need holes to go in a couple of inches, but stops after about one inch. What gives, or rather, doesn't?

Marcus

[Mungo "two sheds" Toadfoot]

Sir will be wanting an SDS drill.

Si

[Lurch]

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 21:15:56 +0100, "Marcus Fox" strung together this:

A combination of crap drill, blunt drill bit and well-made bricks probably. Trying a new, sharp, quality drill bit will probably improve things a bit. I also notice you never mentioned hammer action at any point, if you're not using it you'll just burn out the drill bits and the drill. Other than that, it's new drill time!

[Marcus Fox]

It has a slider with a drill icon and a hammer icon, which I assume is hammer action, which I was using. It is a hell of a lot louder than the first option. Drill is a BD163V 550W. Still, must be Netto's s**te quality drill bits...

Marcus

[Lurch]

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 22:08:24 +0100, "Marcus Fox" strung together this:

Yep, sounds about right.

Hmmm.

Most definitely not helping at all!

[Set Square]

To drill into hard brick, you can't beat a (mains powered!) SDS drill with suitible SDS bit.

Not sure about your comment about stopping after an inch. It sounds like you've come up against something hard. It may just be that the first inch is plaster, and that you've come into a hard brick or even a concrete lintel. SDS will deal with either of these ok. However, if you've hit some metal - like cast iron from an old range, for instance, SDS won't help - and you'll need a good ordinary drill (preferably with a 2-speed gearbox) and a good quality HSS bit designed for drilling metal.

[Michael Mcneil]

The difference between a battery drill and an ordinary mains one is the same as that between a mains ordinary drill and SDS one. You are going into masonry with the hammer action but when it gets to a harder substrate, the stone that is the end of it.

Get yourself a cheap SDS from B&Q they are doing a massive one very cheap at the moment. A lad from work has just got one and is very happy with it. It will walk through limestone and granite like the B&D drill gets therough sand and cement.

The alternative for now is to keep searching for soft bits and put a couple of battons up to take the brackets. I always do that anyway. a set of soldiers running down from ceiling to floor every 600mm or so looks a lot better than random brackets relying on the state of the finish of the wall for level.

But I have a load of junk and books I have no other space for.

[N. Thornton]

If that occurs, just drill elsewhere - its the easy option usually.

No-ones asked yet: are you using TCT masonry bits? If not, use em. Theyre easily recognised: they have a bit at the end thats a bit wider than the rest of the drill bit, and the business end feels very blunt to the touch.

SDS drills are nice but you wont need to buy one for this: any mains hammer drill can do bricks with some shove. Might have to put a lot of weight onto it if its serious duty concrete.

My only concern here is just what are you hitting in there? Better to drill where soft if poss, safer.

Regards, NT