SDS drill for under £50?

Yes. Don't. It's a far better proposition to go for a DeWalt or similar in the £90-100 range. Much easier to use, safer and more reliable.

Oh no.... here we go again. There are two camps on this type of question. Buy cheap i.e. Aldi, Lidl, Argos sale etc. It will do the job you need it for (occasional use), or spend £500 on the best on the market and leave it in it's case, but at least you can say you've got 'the best there is'. If it helps I have a Challenge from Argos, it is two years old been used probably 15 times and it still works perfectly, never found anything to trouble it as yet. IIRC it cost me

I got the Challenge jobby from Argos which seems OK. About £40.

Depends if you want the 'drill type' or the 'breaker type'. Drill type is much better for just drilling holes, I'd never go back to a hammer drill again. Breaker type can be very heavy for drilling, but useful for very light concrete breaking or light demolition.

I have both. Both are cheapos.

Dave

Yeah, but if I do that for every tool, it's going to cost me a fortune! I still have an old B&D hammer drill that cost about £20 (6 years ago) and it's going fine despite heavy use and abuse. Bloody useless for large/long bits through hard walls though! Thus my need for something to use for those rare occasions where I need more ooomph. And corded will be just fine as the battery wouldn't be used often enough to keep it charged well.

I know spending £30k on a car from a recommended manufacturer will get me a great car that will perform fantastically and last well, but that doesn't mean you can't get something for £20k that will do the job as well, if in slightly less luxury. Or something ....

Again, as with a previous poster, I presume you're referring to

Your choice. Have a look through other threads on the subject and broadly the issues with the low end ones are reliability, clutch problems (a safety issue) and being heavy to use.

Certainly an SDS drill is not a precision tool, so one can argue that the occasional use aspect means that perhaps reliability and weight are not major factors.

However, if usage really is occasional, a better option would be to rent a proper one when needed.

But it £100 really the buy in point for that? I would have thought at least the first two items should be cleared by £50/60?

Yeah, it would - but I'm a right bugger for deciding to do something one day and not getting around to it until the next ;o)

Agreed!

Dave

Agreed - I have one. You don't need a De Walt and you don't need to spend anything like £90 to £100.

The Wickes one isn't bad either.

Dave

They also do a bosch one too. :-)

That is why there is a FAQ ;-)

You are perhaps overstating the top end - a really good SDS is available at around the £100 mark these days.

The usual comments apply about try to find one with a clutch and that is a sensible weight, and has a good rotation lock apply (see faq).

However one thing I would add regards the cheap / not so cheap debate is that of speed controllers. The most noticeable difference I have found with chisel operation is the lack of finnesse with the low end models. Many don't have variable speed at all and hence both their chiseling and drilling are brutal, and of those that do it often does not offer good low speed power delivery. Sometimes you want "brutal" when drilling blind holes in hard stuff, and breaking concrete. Often you don't like when you are nearly through a wall it is nice to back off and hammer very lightly and drill very slowly as you break through, so that you don't take a half brick sized lump out of the wall as an "exit wound".

Same goes for chiseling - it is much nice to start a cable chase with a gentle tapping on the plaster to make a grove before you go at it hammer and tongs - otherwise the chissel can dance all over the place before you get it started. It makes the differece between a neat accurate chase and socket cut out, and a lot of extra making good!

Well... take a look back through previous threads. Experiences are very mixed at below £50.

Ah.... the tuit problem.

It really depends on what you expect from it.

Do you have one?

If you are going to use it 5-10 times a year then somethinh under £50 is fine. I have a SDS from Makro cowst me £20 was half pricce but been great. Ok if i was a builder then i would buy a very good one, but i'm not.

and is Dewalt also B&D?

You comparison is simialrto Ford and Jaguar

John Rumm wrote: [snip]

The Wickes (Kress) 500W SDS drills have performed impeccably for me. The rotation lock on the cheaper drills is suspect and I had a NuTool "XPro" explode in my hands which put me off ever using one again.

The two were similarly priced so, as ever, there's more to it than price alone.

Wickes SDS has performed well in this respect.

It helps to use the right type of chisel. I find that for chasing it's better use one of the multipoint chisels than the cheap freebies supplied witht he drill. A multipoint can make a decent finish on the base of the channel and makes a good clean cut into plaster.

The OP expects "Hoping to get one soon for the odd job (a few times a year, not constant use)".

I expect he expects it to drill the odd hole.

Dave