A wall chaser is two angle grinder blades on one tool:-)
My apologies to South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue for using one at a hospital that they cover when the fire alarm goes off. Hope you enjoyed the £75 I paid for your attendance.
Because you are talking bollocks.
I have used the multitool, with a gammy old blade, to cut 1/4" wide chases into the plaster from ceiling down to door recesses for alarm contact wiring.
A multitool will cut without the sharp bits on the blade. The heat generated and the motion made will destroy what's in it's path.
It's not usually cutting the plaster that's difficult, but the brick underneath. To just chase into plaster a decent chisel is usually enough.
Not really surprising you live in a house made out of ticky-tacky.
A scutch hammer (or hammer and scutch chisel) or a masonry drill (followed by a cold chisel) will do just fine.
These tools are designed to cut sheet material, not masonry.
A lightweight SDS with roto stop and chisel even easier.
But don't think there's any easy way that doesn't make a lot of dust.
In future, make sure you buy a house with partition walls. ;-)
The sharp pointy bits on a blade on a multitool last for about 10 seconds. Do you really replace it that often?
Best to use a decent tenon saw to cut the bricks with, then. And a nice sharp wood chisel to get the corners square.
Not saying it's difficult to chisel it, but easy to get a narrower slit and cleaner edges with the multi-tool, that's all ...
The technique that I found works quite well is:
Draw outline on wall around the backbox.
Set a 20mm wide chisel in the SDS, and mark the box depth on it with a wrap of insulating tape.
Hold the drill perpendicular to the wall, and place the chisel just outside the line, then sink it to the depth set by the tape. Continue all round the periphery of the box until you have a channel to the right depth round the edges.
Swap the chisel for a 40mm bit. Working at an angle about a quarter of the way across the double socket width (or in the middle of a single), chisel out and across toward your existing cut. Thus taking out the edges of the infill. Repeat - moving in toward the centre, until you now have a box hole that is full depth at the outside edges, and has a "hump" in the middle.
Now work on the hump - using the die chisel to "plane" off the top of it. Repeat until its flat enough across the width of the box. Test fit the box as you go.
Once done, you can in many cases just drill screw holes for the fixing screws. If there is too much "irregularity", then mix up so (preferably old) bonding plaster, slap it in the back of the hole, and bed the box into it.
OP pollowing up thanks for the comments.
I was personally sceptical about cutting brick and that seems to be confirmed.
I'm going to get a multitool regardless, because there are plenty of other applications (such as underfloor access) where it will be just the job. I will however obtain a so-called "carbide" cutter to check it's capability out......you never know.....
I've never seen one. I do have tools which are more akin to a sander for hard materials. But would cut very slowly indeed.
Thing with carbide is it's very brittle. Fine for tipping a circular saw where the loading is uniform. Not sure how well it would work on a hand held small saw like this.
Multi tools certainly have their uses. Which tend to be on the odd occasion where more traditional power tools can't cope. But are in no way a better replacement for those for everything.
I base this on having pretty well all types of saws, etc. And how often I go for the multi-tool.
It'll do what an angle grinder does but way slower/gentler. So dust won't fly but slow progress.
I find a hoover nozzle close to a grinder catches almost all of it
NT
There are various carbide and diamond blades, e.g.
Fine for a bit of tile shaping, but still not for chopping out half a brick.
I've recently bought a very wide SDS chisel so I'll give that a go next time. We have lime plaster over solid (and I mean SOLID) concrete blocks from the 1930s. It's a bit of a battle to get the hump flat without going too deep in places so having a couple of holes drilled to depth has been a useful guide. Despite this there's always somewhere sticking up, and it can be hard to find.
Yes- that's the sort of thing I've got here. But would be painfully slow cutting brick and would soon overheat. Not sure they'd cut deep enough either.
Why? The multitool works fine. You don't need the blade to be sharp to go through stone.
Why? The multitool works fine. You don't need the blade to be sharp to go through stone.
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