My parents lived for many years in a tower block in Thamesmead. They wanted a shelf on the balcony, so I got out my B&D hammer drill and said it would only take a few minutes. Wrong. Ten minutes with a TCT masonry bit got in about 3 mm. The walls were reinforced concrete loaded with small flint pieces. Toughest stuff I've ever had to drill - until I came across porcelain bathroom tiles, but that's another story...
And reinforced concrete lintels. Best drill bits I've come across.
Diamond core drills were the ones that impressed me most. Is that what these are?
In message , dennis@home.?.invalid writes
Tsk! This is about old tools. Get out there with your club hammer and Rawl tool :-)
Yes, I still have mine, and yes, it was great for curtain rails in concrete lintels before I had a hammer drill. Sadly, I have lost the little chisel shaped part that removes the bit from the tool. I say lost - it did a ping fuckit in the shed, and has yet to be found, but must be there somewhere.
No. They are these:
I assume the tip is TC, but these bits do outperform other TCT bits. Although I wouldn't use them out of choice for drilling steel, as I mentioned they are ideal when you hit the steel bar in reinforced concrete. And as many of the reviews state, you can use them without hammer action to drill through brick and concrete.
They will also penetrate porcelain tiles. I have used diamond core bits for these, but you have to be very careful and go slowly, or else all you succeed in doing is melting the drill tip before the diamond can cut through!
My 90s B&D is plastic bodied and blue.
When my parents moved into a flat recently I acquired my dad's old D720 two-speed drill and pillar stand, haven't had a chance to use it yet. Also his slightly less old Workmate, 40-odd years old and still solid.
Also amongst his stuff was a Yankee ratchet screwdriver, which I definitely don't intend to use. I showed it to my joiner B-I-L, who winced with remembered pain...
Seen silver, gold, white, orange and blue. Mine is not far off Makita blue back plastic, with a metal gearbox in silver on the front.
B&D drill stands were/are comparatively flimsy. The "pillar" is simply thinnish guage steel tubing. I can remeberr having to fite a jubilee clip on the pillar to act as a depth stop although this can't have been necessary by deasign. Dunno. To use it was necessary to clamp the base to the bench - presumably ideally it should have been screwed permantly in position, clamp the work to the base, or possibly both at the same time., and keep hold of the top of the pillar with one hand while pulling the lever which lowered the drill. With a bit of practice this "drill guildance system" worked reasonably well. Better than freehand drilling anyway. Providing you'd positioned the jubilee clip in the right place.
Quite frankly your B-I-L was talking nonsense. Before the advent of powered screwdrivers* yankees save hours of work for anyone having to do repetitive screwing, say boarding out a loft, where the odd scratch mark didn't matter. Yankees were possibly one of the reasons for the take off of cross head screws - they were probably Philips then, and all new tools came with a selection of blades including cross heads. The technique with yankees was to always keep one hand on the chuck while pumping the handle with the other.
*Introduced to the UK by the shipload during the war from the US, to speed up production where it would have simply been too expensive to kit out the whole workforce with electric or air tools in time. A typically Soviet answer to a problem solved using US kit.michael adams
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michael adams
The Bosch multis are TC with a cutting edge, so can do wood & masonry. They will of course dull in time and no longer be much use for wood.
NT
I had a yankee and had no time for it. A hand drill is far better. A mains drill 'leaves it for dead' when putting in screws, to borrow the idiot's phrase. I'm sure it had its place once, but that was a lot longer than 40 years ago.
NT
Which rather does beg the question as to why you bought one in the first place.
Don't say you were in any way influenced by the fact that every toolshop sold them and that thousands of other "mugs" seemed quite happy to be using them on a daily basis.
If you mean a battery powered screwdriver with variable torque then obviously.
Mains drills at the time didn't have variable torque. Which meant either
a) breaking your wrist or the tool flying out of your hands
b) stripping out the head
c) stopping far short, putting down your driill, and finishing off each screw with a manual screwdriver
So which was your method of choice ? Broken wrists, stripped heads, or finishing off by hand ?
michael adams
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d) understanding the time/torque/turns performance of your drill and stopping just in time to obviate a), b), and c)
They were very popular on DIY telly progs many years ago. Barry Buckler?
But of course he was pumping screws into prepared holes. ;-)
I worked in TV and they were also popular with the scenery construction crews. I'm told injuries dropped considerably when they changed from slotted to Pozi screws...
I'm sure NT will be able to speak for himself, but how did you personally measure the torque output of your drill, and equate this with the torque necessary to drive the screw fully home ? Such that you were able to withdraw the driver at exactly the right moment before head damage ensued ?
Did you need to use specialised equipment for this or is this something NT could have been doing for himself at home, as well ?
michael adams
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I didn't pay for it.
I mean a hand drill. Every diyer had them back then.
most didn't have variable speed either
rubbish x2. I've used mains drills for large scale screwing, for want of a better phrase.
you can but no need
yup. Screwhead meeting workpiece is a good brake. And philips recesses do cam out. You can also implement torque limiting by how hard you press the drill.
for most jobs, hand. Bigger jobs, mains drill. The Yankee just didn't save time, it was neither a good drill nor a good screwdriver.
NT
Barry Bucknell. The house he renovated is still there, and the nameplate though rather worn with time is still there as well. Or at least was a few months ago. ISTR bits of the old programmes are on Youtube Bucknell stood accused by some of persuading viewers to ruin any number of exquisite Victorian panelled doors by covering them with tacky hardboard, ripping out fireplaces etc.
He probably wielded an electric drill as well.
Providing you kept one hand on the chuck there should be no injuries. Slippages maybe.Pozi and Phillips were/are more efficient as all the power is being directed towards the centre of the screw rather than across a slot.
michael adams
A hand drill, unless a breast drill requires two hand to operate. One to hold a handle on the end or at the side side and a hand to turn the wheel. This didn't matter when drilling a hole as once started the end of the drill was located in the hole. This wouldn't have applied when driving a screw. So given you have no available spare hand, unlike with a yankee, how did you stop the blade slipping off the screw ?
Very few people used Yankees for drilling holes. There were portable mains power drills for that. Whether single or two speed didn't really matter.
The point you seem to be missing is that there weren't any portable mains drivers with variable torque. Which are necessary to drive screws fully home.
michael adams
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Probably, I have one but I only have pozi bits for it. I haven't used it for at least a decade.
I think we have a troll. Or something equally unuseful.
Right. So when using a hand screwdriver, as presumably you must have done at some time or other in the past, you stopped turning the handle immediately the screwhead met the workpiece, did you ?
You never felt tempted at any time, maybe, to just give the screwdriver another quarter or half turn just to drive it fully home ?
Of course maybe you didn't. Which might help explain a lot of things.
Same as with all those stripped screwheads, maybe.
michael adams
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