Power Tools & General Tools Recommendations & Advice

I bought a Titan breaker from Screwfix a few years back, wasn't hugely expensive and it doesn't get used much but it was well worth the money.

They don't sell Titan branded ones now but they still sell cheap ones.

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For the record, this cut through it like butter, the cut was outlined with SDS drill holes first and basically goes across the garage. Pipes will be laid and backfilled, then recovered with concrete/self levelling concrete to replace the floor.
 
Wanted a small rotary tool for messing around with a DIY cockpit build. Looked at the Dremel, but went for a Tacklife one from the rainforest to save a few quid.

Good kit, but the one of the chuck bits was out of alignment, although it worked fine using the extension. Was going to refund on amazon but contacted their support instead, sent a picture of the problem. A day later I've just received a whole new kit. Now have two rotary tool kits! Damn good service for the price!
 
Wanted a small rotary tool for messing around with a DIY cockpit build. Looked at the Dremel, but went for a Tacklife one from the rainforest to save a few quid.

Good kit, but the one of the chuck bits was out of alignment, although it worked fine using the extension. Was going to refund on amazon but contacted their support instead, sent a picture of the problem. A day later I've just received a whole new kit. Now have two rotary tool kits! Damn good service for the price!

I've got a fair few tacklife tools at home now. Really impre with their stuff it's perfect for occasional use.
 
I have to say my dremel with something like a cutting disk attached is one of the only tools I have that actually scares me using it.

Fast spinning, hand held, no guards and fragile skittish blades just doesn’t do anything for me and is very much a last resort tool for me. I’m surprised there aren’t many stories out there of people doing significant damage with them.
 
I have the Milwaukee M18 CBLPD drill, which is excellent. Sadly, in a moment of thoughtless laziness, I held the chuck and used the motor to tighten it up into a drill bit (you know that thing they tell you never too do :rolleyes:). The end result is that I knackered the chuck's internals and it slowly got worse and worse until I couldn't even get a 6mm bit out anymore. Spoke to Milwaukee CS and it turns out that the chuck is only covered for 90 days.:(
£40+ later, I've learned a pricey lesson. :rolleyes:
 
I have the Milwaukee M18 CBLPD drill, which is excellent. Sadly, in a moment of thoughtless laziness, I held the chuck and used the motor to tighten it up into a drill bit (you know that thing they tell you never too do :rolleyes:). The end result is that I knackered the chuck's internals and it slowly got worse and worse until I couldn't even get a 6mm bit out anymore. Spoke to Milwaukee CS and it turns out that the chuck is only covered for 90 days.:(
£40+ later, I've learned a pricey lesson. :rolleyes:
That's pretty crap build quality from Milwaukee, not come across a single person who has done it properly since the manual chuck key days on-site and never heard of anyone complain.
 
Morning all,

I'm looking to buy my first cordless drill.

I have been using and still am a black and decker wired one which is now around 18 years old. Done me well and have been able to deal with most DIY jobs.

Main uses will be drilling holes in walls (mainly plaster or into breeze block) and a bit of screws into wood.

Looking at the spec of drill I've got it's got around 11nm of torque.

I was all set to buy Einhell or even a Dewalt kit. With an impact driver in but just wonder if its overkill?

Looking around I can pick up a macallister on ebay refurbished for as low as around £38 with 2 x 1.5 ah batteries. The drill itself looks pretty decent and gets good reviews.

With cordless do you invest in the drill or is it more about going for the brand with the biggest selection of tools which can be used with the battery type?

I would like a cordless lawnmower eventually but macallister doesn't seem to have a reasonably prices one.

On the flip side someone local is selling an einhell mower without batteries which I think I could snap up for £20...am I therefore best going down the Einhell route?!

Help!
 
I've got the regular Makita drill/driver...it's been great for usual duties, screwdriving, drilling into wood, plaster.

Found its limitations going into brick to put my TV wall mount up....but that's what you need a decent SDS hammer drill for. Anything that tries to do both well will always be a compromise.
 
To be honest you don’t sound like your going to get neck deep in cordless power tools so I would just buy a reasonable priced DIY focussed one. I would buy a combi drill (with hammer) rather than a drill driver though.

mall the big brands are of course fine but to be honest so are the likes of erbauer and what Aldi and lidl are selling for occasional DIY.

Ryobi might be a good shout for something more consumer focused, large range of garden tools that use the same batteries and they are a lot cheaper than the trade focused brands like dewalt.
 
Agree with the above, that will be more than fine for DIY needs. I wouldn’t bother buying an impact driver unless you have a specific need to put chunked screws into chunky bits of wood anytime soon. They can be handy though but not essential.

Their cordless mower is rather expensive though and the small drill batteries wouldn’t be up to the job (you need two to run it).

I’d still suggest ryobi out of the big brands for what you are looking at. You could get both the drill and the mower for under £300 with a bit of savvy buying.
 
I find (from picking things up after someone else) that where they've used impact drivers they can shove screws very deep into the wood causing it to mushroom over the screwhead, and also start to damage the pozi-drive head so that it becomes very difficult to get them back out later. Hopefully it will be possible to use better screws and better control the power, but if this is what they always do then I'm not so sold on them.
 
I find (from picking things up after someone else) that where they've used impact drivers they can shove screws very deep into the wood causing it to mushroom over the screwhead, and also start to damage the pozi-drive head so that it becomes very difficult to get them back out later. Hopefully it will be possible to use better screws and better control the power, but if this is what they always do then I'm not so sold on them.

That is incorrect use of the tool, the user is overdriving the screws and/or no pilot holes used. You can get heads designed for impact drivers as well, the cheap rubbish ones will start to degrade because of the power.
 
Than
@GinG if you wont use it much then buying a cheapo drill will be fine for plaster/lightweight blocks and screws. However an impact driver is nice for screwing. Screwfix have a decent DeWalt offer on and the case is always nice to have.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-d...i-ion-xr-brushless-cordless-combi-drill/268fx

Drills like that will be fine for 99% of DIY, even occasional drilling into brick is no issue with quality bits.

Thanks for that. I had seen this offer and although tempted I wonder if I would get the benefit of this over say the macallister.

Like I say I've been using an almost 18 year old drill... This one in fact http://service.blackanddecker.co.uk/BD/GB/en-GB/Product/ProductDetail?id=5454

This has served me well for 95% of the jobs required.
 
Thanks for that. I had seen this offer and although tempted I wonder if I would get the benefit of this over say the macallister.

For drilling plasterboard or breeze blocks I doubt you'd notice much difference TBH, if you want to drill harder materials I expect the DeWalt will be better but if you wont use those capabilities then maybe not worth it but I would expect the DeWalt will last longer, will be better quality has 2 batteries and carry case.
 
Morning all,

I'm looking to buy my first cordless drill.

I have been using and still am a black and decker wired one which is now around 18 years old. Done me well and have been able to deal with most DIY jobs.

Main uses will be drilling holes in walls (mainly plaster or into breeze block) and a bit of screws into wood.

Looking at the spec of drill I've got it's got around 11nm of torque.

I was all set to buy Einhell or even a Dewalt kit. With an impact driver in but just wonder if its overkill?

Looking around I can pick up a macallister on ebay refurbished for as low as around £38 with 2 x 1.5 ah batteries. The drill itself looks pretty decent and gets good reviews.

With cordless do you invest in the drill or is it more about going for the brand with the biggest selection of tools which can be used with the battery type?

I would like a cordless lawnmower eventually but macallister doesn't seem to have a reasonably prices one.

On the flip side someone local is selling an einhell mower without batteries which I think I could snap up for £20...am I therefore best going down the Einhell route?!

Help!

Haha I too used my trusty black and decker for 20 odd years, even using it as a corded screwdriver if doing lots of screwing!

Last summer I treated myself to a DeWalt cordless combi drill, which is great. Moving from mains to cordless I got obsessed with battery capacity and finally opted for a DeWalt box which includes X2 4amp batteries and a charger. I now realise this is massive overkill for a diyer.
When strengthening our fence I ran in over 1000 woodscrews over 2 days before the battery needed changing!

I've got them now though, and wanted a spare battery to go with my DeWalt impact driver, 1/2 inch chuck, which I use on the car.

Just bought a cordless 5 inch disc cutter to replace my old corded 4 inch which had a broken trigger, the obvious choice was a Dewalt- they suck you in lol.
 
tbh if you're going cordless it's no bad thing to pick a brand and stick with it as the batteries are often interchangeable which helps keep costs down and means you can have a charging cycle where you always have at least one battery ready to roll.

For regular use eg tradesmen cordless makes a lot of sense. However, as I've said previously, for occasional DIY use I think corded is better as it is cheaper (no charger and batteries to buy on top), more environmentally friendly, longer life as no batteries to go flat/degrade over time (which can happen irrespective of use) and the unit is usually smaller and easier to store too.
 
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Haha I too used my trusty black and decker for 20 odd years, even using it as a corded screwdriver if doing lots of screwing!

Last summer I treated myself to a DeWalt cordless combi drill, which is great. Moving from mains to cordless I got obsessed with battery capacity and finally opted for a DeWalt box which includes X2 4amp batteries and a charger. I now realise this is massive overkill for a diyer.
When strengthening our fence I ran in over 1000 woodscrews over 2 days before the battery needed changing!

I've got them now though, and wanted a spare battery to go with my DeWalt impact driver, 1/2 inch chuck, which I use on the car.

Just bought a cordless 5 inch disc cutter to replace my old corded 4 inch which had a broken trigger, the obvious choice was a Dewalt- they suck you in lol.

I much prefer the smaller batteries on drills, they last plenty long enough (as you say the big ones are overkill) and have the long under appreciated advantage of having a much better balanced tool. There also a lot smaller which can be handy for some awkward jobs.
 
I much prefer the smaller batteries on drills, they last plenty long enough (as you say the big ones are overkill) and have the long under appreciated advantage of having a much better balanced tool. There also a lot smaller which can be handy for some awkward jobs.

Currently have 7 5mah and 4mah DeWalt batteries which are great but sometimes I miss the 1.5/2mah size from my old kit, I'll probably get my next tool with the smaller batteries or when next on offer on Amazon just for squeezing the impact driver into tight spaces or plaster boarding a ceiling.
 
I have a load of the 4 and 2ah DeWalt ones. Personally I think the tools feel better balanced with the bigger batteries, but the smaller sized ones are handy for some jobs. The 2ah ones are the smallest with the battery gauge on them. The 1.5 and 1.3ah ones don't have them. The new Dewalt 3ah ones are the same size as the 2ah ones, so I might get one of them next.

Dave
 
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