Need a new SDS drill

Oct 18, 2005 154 Replies

I bought an Aldi SDS drill for £25, with some bits (IIRC a pointed "breaker", 1" chisel, and 9 other SDS+ bits from 6mm to 25mm). It has done well, and is still doing well. 4J, too. This is not to say that Makita (which one, though?) drills are sheyte. Just that my £25 drill was an absolute and thorough bargain.

Oh (innocence) , aren't there any expensive SDS drills that are heavy, then?

Richard Cranium can't catch them. They keep moving.

My old Aldi one has - in fact I haven't seen a cheap SDS drill that doesn't. Perhaps 'cos I ain't looked at many since having this one.

You should not press on an SDS drill, just let the bit "float" on the cushion of blows given. If you press on it, it will not drill efficiently.

That's the idea of it.

Roto-stop is worth paying real money for.

Hammer stop and a fast second speed lets you drill small holes in steel. Sometimes this is the difference between carrying one drill on site and carrying two.

When buying a cheapie, check the weight. Many of them work, but they're a horrible weight to be dragging around. This is especially true of 9" angle grinders!

Why not another Kress from Wickes?

That's not how mine works. Unless I press quite hard there is no hammer action at all, just a lot of noise. If what you say is correct then it was faulty anyway.

No, I just want to cut into a brick, not shatter it into pieces.

How good do you find SDS drills for getting through the padding?

I bought a Silverline 868603 Hi-Spec SDS+ Hammer Drill from

formatting link
for £52 it does the job and I have succesfully chased the whole house with it and cut back boxes. But I would say my mates Dewalt and Bosch are both nicer to use and provide better control but for the half the price I have better than half the performance and as it will get very little use once the house is done i'm happy.

Paul

They are getting better certainly - the original NuTool type of beast (5kg, motor perpendicular to the drilling axis) which most budget tools were a copy of did not have a lock and left the bit free to rotate. They also had a nice design feature where the rotation selector could vibrate round and engage rotation for you unexpectedly! The second generation of these seems to have ironed out some of the more dangerous aspects (although you can still find drills without a safety clutch).

The best rotation locks will let you position the bit at any angle and then lock it, which makes getting comfortable access to the johb in hand nice and easy.

Plenty - but they tend to have hammer output energies in the 4 to 6J range rather than 2 - 3J like the smaller lighter ones (or the heavy cheapies).

Lubrication is the key... try dunking the back end of the bit in a little grease occationaly before use.

;-) yup some can be a bit "all or nothing" can't they...

Matt, let us know as you are very familiar with Broadmoor. Is that where you met Richard Cranium?

868606 That looks like the Aldi £25 Makita lookalike, except Aldi give a 3 year guarantee and it is 1000 w

The power input to a drill means nothing and gives no clue about its performance.

It was indeed me, although I misinterpreted the description of "intermittent" to mean that the drive was intermittent, not the hammer action. As the hammer action runs on a sort of cam mechanism, sooner or later it will wear out, particularly with all the abrasive dust which accompanies hammer-drilling. I revived a 1950s Wolf drill by this method. It still sees a little use, it is handy on some jobs to have two drills on hand to save changing bits all the time.

John Schmitt

examination there was a break in the neutral of the removed bit, an inch or so away from the drill.

I will still probably get a new one - the hammer action is either non-existent or extremely violent, depending on how hard I press.

-- Chris Melluish

Which of course is total drivel.

Which just proves how little you know.

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required