What Drill can you recommend?

[Gary Birch]

We bought a Hitachi 24V SDS drill about 3 years ago. It has never let us down and is still going strong. Plenty of other good SDS drills available though. We bought Hitachi cos it was on offer at the time 😀

I think any of the big name brands will be fine.

Cheers

Gary

[Graham Shand]

quote Stuart Miller:

Been using a £100 cordless Makita drill for a while now which is great for most applications except for drilling into masonry / concrete.
Just not enough power, and I have had to resort to a corded drill. This is obviously a problem if no handy power point.
I realise I will have to upgrade to a more powerful drill and would like to know what is recommended.

What cordless drills do you recommend for general use including masonry?

I use an 18 volt dewalt drill with a hammer action, there is now a 24 volt version which is a beast, although not cheap still gives you the cordless option. regards Graham

[John Harding]

Ive got a 24V Dewalt – orgasmic

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[Gary Birch]

quote John Harding:

Ive got a 24V Dewalt – orgasmic

You like it then John? :lol1: :lol1:

[Hugh Potter]

I bought the panasonic 28v sds last year for about £350.

i’d struggled on without one for years, then due to one very nasty and uneven facia, which required a shallow wooden frame be built to square the face up and thus, about 50 holes drilled, I finally gave in and got one.

the ladders were secured -no room for scaffold / trestles- yet i was putting so much pressure on the drill that i was pushing the ladder from the wall, after about 10 holes at around 5-7 mins a hole I’d had enough, went straight down to a few tool centers nearby and tried about half a dozen before going for the drill pictured, it took me all of half an hour to get the remaining holes drilled!

in all honesty, I would have gone for the more expensive metabo equivelent, slightly better in most aspects, drilled even harder and faster than the panasonic but none in stock, about £100 more too, since no-one had one i went for the panasonic. have never looked back to be honest, it’s drilled 2" augers through old seafront groyne timber (try banging a nail in and you’ll know how impresive that feat is!), 8"core dril into about 300mm of concrete, just a superb tool!

Hugh

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[Fred McLean]

We’ve got a 36 volt hilti best buy ever 😀

a bit expensive on initial outlay but it’s never let us down, and by-eck it fairly drives screws in if needed and re-charges in a 1/2 hour 😀

[Robert Lambie]

I have tried loads of these types of guns over the years… many different makes.

I firmly believe that each power tool should be used for the job in hand.

if your putting screws all the time and light drilling, then a lightweight reputable brand cordless screw gun.

heavier on-site drilling and screwing then same again but higher voltage and a step up from the cordless driver. these normally have masonry options which is fine. but still…

masonry drilling should be done with a purpose made masonry drill…

high speed "continuous" drilling then a plug in drill should be used if possible.

it is totally fine to have an all rounder type gun if you are using once in a blue moon. but day to day work into hard stone and the like. can really kill any brand of gun.

anyway… not the cheapest but certainly the best by far that i have used is the HILTI range. ive been using them for a year now and have put together a demo based on this. this will be loaded very soon when the site updates shortly.

in answer to your question, as i was babbling a tad there :lol1:

i would suggest you call HILTI and speak to them about their FLEET CARE management option. as an all rounder ide suggest the HILTI SFH22-A which is one of various HILTI tools we now use daily.
here is what i think is the slightly earlier model than the one i have.
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as i said, this is our more or less heavyweight all rounder…
for on-site masonry only, you should look at the HILTI TE2-A

Hilti will also be working with the UKSG for 2011 with a UKSG online ordering / accounts system. http://www.hilti.co.uk

[Faisal Ali]

quote Robert Lambie:

Hilti will also be working with the UKSG for 2011 with a UKSG online ordering / accounts system. http://www.hilti.co.uk

that’s great news, hilti are good but you pay top whack for the privilege. was saving up for a TE 4-A22 cordless hammer but will look out for the UKSG offer.

I would add the Bosch GBH SDS to the list of other drills capable of doing a job

[Robert Lambie]

I wouldn’t say its you pay for the privilege mate… i agree a great many products/brands for almost anything is "your paying for the name" to an extent maybe you are, but havig been fitting and making signs 20 years i have went through a shopping list of tool brands and Hilti really has swung things for me at the moment.

You mention Bosch… I have the Bosch grave yard in our place… 😕
we alwasy bought bosch for around 10 years now. everything from chop saws, circular saws, cordless drills you name it… all bosch. we began moving to dewalt for some products as i began getting sick of faults with bosch.
I had two best buys from dewalt…
the large hammer action dewalt that john harding has just mentioned above in a post and a lightweight dewalt screw gun. both out lasted any bosch i had by at least a year.

the past year, i have just kept replacing each tool i have with another hilti…
as i said, it don’t believe you pay for the privilege of owning their tools, they are value for money.

one other thing… try HILTI Drill bits… have an X-head/tip on them… for masonary they are amazing. cut into anything like butter… will elaborate in the demo. 😉

[Martin Pearson]

Have a slightly different way of doing this sort of work. I stuck with corded drills for really heavy duty work and run them off a generator. Seems to have worked out for me so far and of course I can also run other power tools and lights from it if required.

[Nick Monir]

Stuart,

We use the Dewalt 24v, same as John. Never been let down once and they actually have more grunt than the mains powered version.

Nick.