SDS drill

[maxi]

I tried drilling some holes into bloomin mutant massonary (sat dish install) yesterday with my normal drill which seemed impossible. I didn't get too far. So my neighbour said I need something called a sds drill so I looked on the argos website and have seen 2 fairly cheepish ones :

in mind I would probly only use it very occasionally.

Are they any good or could some kind person tell me what would be a decent cheap one :)

OOOh yes can I use my normal drill bits in one of these drills ?

Thanks

[Harry Bloomfield]

maxi laid this down on his screen :

They are brilliant. They make drilling holes in brick and concrete trivial.

Some of the SDS drills come with a chuck adaptor to enable ordinary straight shanked bits to be used, but they really only should be used for making holes in wood or steel (no hammer use). Even if they support hammer, they don't work too well. Buy the proper SDS bits - they work properly and they are not that much more expensive.

Lidl/Aldi do SDS bit sets for 6/7/8 pounds. They also sometimes do the SDS drills themselves. I bought one five years ago and it is still going strong after lots of use, though some suggest they are rather heavy - especially on a ladder. I paid around £30 and it does rotary or hammer or both and includes a clutch to prevent it twisting your arm off if it jams in the hole - make sure what ever you buy does/has all of these as a minimum. With it I can drill some quite bit holes in no time (it put a 20mm hole through a metre of concrete in an hour) and can be used with the rotary stop to chisel/break up concrete.

[John D.W.]

Normal drills are not recommended

I have one of an earlier version of the Argos Challenge SDS drills and it's fine for casual use at the price (I got mine in the end-of-line sale at a lower price). It came with some SDS drills and, providing you use those and not your normal drill bits it should be fine. Don't plan on using the enclosed standard chuck for anything practical...

I've used mine for drilling many largeish holes for anchor bolts in brick and concrete that would have been a problem for my hammer drill. I've also used the chisel, with the rotary stop, for breaking up concrete post supports. It's not a high quality tool, but works for casual DIY. Don't plan on using it up a latter, though, since it's heavy. Extra SDS drill bits could cost a significant fraction of the drill's price, so check what is supplied will meet your needs, or get the Challenge bit set on offer.

[Steven Campbell]

>> bearing in mind I would probly only use it very occasionally.

I bought the drill on your second link about 2 years ago thinking it probably wouldn't last long but it has been great. It can drill anything. The best feature is you can use it to as a chisel to chase the wall. Makes putting extra wall sockets etc in a doddle.

Aldi / Lidl usually sell a drill set the exact same as

for around £6 so keep your eyes open.

Steven.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

No. An SDS drill has to be held from rotating but allowed to slide in and out within the SDS chuck. If you look at one you'll see the fixing to the chuck is different to an ordinary drill which just uses friction to clamp the bit. Some SDS drills give you an ordinary chuck so you can do plain drilling using ordinary bits - but this disables the SDS 'hammer' action.

[Bruce]

I have an ordinary chuck with an SDS shank for use in my SDS drill.

It doesn't disable the hammer action. I don't see how it could - the shank is identical to those on my SDS drill bits.

I just turn off the hammer.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A shoulder on the chuck preventing the end contacting the hammer action.

[Bruce]

Ah yes. I wondered what that was for ...

D'Oh! ;-)