Be Excellent To Each Other

I need a drill but have never owned one before.

Which drill is best?

Tasks:

- Assembling wardrobe (includes attaching heavy bits of wood to one another)
- Drilling holes in walls
- Pretending to be a space cowboy

18v multi speed cordless with hammer action

Because :

18v - higher the better. 12v drills will struggle with a wall
Multi speed - slow for screwing, fast for drilling
Hammer action for drilling masonry

However, if you have serious masonry drilling to do, get a cordless for light stuff and a corded hammer drill for serious drilling. Also, a big starter set of 100+ bits is a good start.

Best: Dewalt

If you buy a set of cheap drill bits, and don't wear glasses, then I would recommend some goggles. I've had them shatter on me in the past.

Personally I would buy a corded drill and a cordless screwdriver, as a drill is fucking annoying to use as a screwdriver, way too big.

Well, actually, what I would do is buy a cordless drill and a corded and an electric cordless screwdriver, lose the chargers for both the cordless ones and end up using the corded for everything, while getting increasingly annoyed at it and promise to buy a new cordless someday, a day which never comes.

I have a couple of Makita driver/drills. They're brilliant but I agree with getting one corded and one cordless.

I've lost track of the amount of times I've gone to use them and the batteries have gone,

I suppose this is one of those investment for the future purchases so should spend as much as I can afford.

If I go for a Dewalt do I still need an 18v?

Two or three speed?

I have narrowed my search to this one but am hesitating at the price.

http://www.toolstop.co.uk/dewalt-dcd980 ... 4ah-p52548

I would advise the 10.8 volt li-on drill/driver for light drilling and screwing. Any old corded hammer drill for aggressive noisy wall mashing

edit: oh yeah, that's a beast!

You really don't need to spend that much just to put up some shelves and shit. A B&Q own brand thing will be good enough for what you want. Spend the other £250 on something fun instead.

FTFY. I'm wi' Mark though, unless you're using it to make a living then a cheaper drill will do you fine.

Seconded. I spent £30 on a corded variable speed hammer drill and about the same on a small battery drill for screwdriver duties. Never let me down

Yup, unless your going to be using it a lot then don't sink so much cash into it imo. Would suggest going to a specialist Power tool shop like Data (a nice example from Cardiff) as they very often have bloody excellent offers and offer much better advice then a student working in B n Q.

Dewalt ARE a very good brand however you are paying a bit on top for the name and the nice yellow colour, I have never found any problem with Hitachi or Bosch. The main thing to look for is as Mr Dom said the 18V minimum for a cordless drill, anything less and it will struggle on hard brick, and you can forget drilling into a concrete lintel. Also if you will be using it alot look at paying slightly more to go for one with the motor made with lightweight metals, it make a hell of a difference having a nice light drill when your using it all day.

A decent 18v variable speed cordless drill will double nicely as a screwdriver also (especially if it is lightweight), I doubt you can get a 18V drill without hammer function but worth checking it has it just in case.

Just at a glance at the Data sight I would suggest that this may be better than what you have selected as you get extra stuff for just 20 squid more plus vat ( can you claim the vat back on your tools through your company?)

See if their is a decent power tool specialist near you and go pay them a visit, it is well worth having a play around with the drills b4 you buy.

Agree with most of what's being said here. Unless you're going to be using it every day, don't spend a fortune and possibly get a cheaper corded hammer drill. Decent 18V cordless drills can set you back >£250 which is a lot of money unless you need it for work. Don't worry about charging, as most modern drills will charge from flat to useable in a few minutes and to fully charged in 30 mins — tea break, in other words

Check out eBay — it's generally the cheapest place to buy decent power tools I find. Do your research first.

The other thing I find with cheaper cordless drills is that they have shit chucks on them, which have great difficulty keeping a secure grip on round drill bits, so another reason to buy a corded hammer drill for hole drilling, just make sure it has a conventional chuck with a key — having said that you can get a DeWalt SDS hammer drill for £100 and and 18V cordless for <£100 too.

One thing I would recommend is buying decent screwdriver bits — most branded makes are crap and will burr the head off within a couple of hours of heavy use, so invest in some Wera pozidrive bits and a magnetic bit holder, you won't regret it — they're bits last for bloody ages.

[edit] That DeWalt is an awesome drill, but the reason it's so expensive is a combination of metal gearing and battery tech — you only need the metal gearing if you're likely to be dropping the bloody thing all the time, which is more likely to happen if you're working on a site. Also, you can probably get that drill on eBay for about £250 with one of the open auctions that pop up from time to time and it's also cheaper on Amazon as well.

12V is perfectly reasonable for general screwing and drilling ( ).
Screwfix often have nice deals on the 12V DeWalt drills, is why I mention it - I have a couple of them and they're pretty indestructable.

I second the other suggestions to get a corded hammer drill for making holes in walls. Preferably SDS, along with the single drill bit for the one size of rawl plug you'll ever use

I have a good-quality 5mm (maybe 4mm) masonry drill, which I drill the hole with, then use a cheapo masonry drill to make it the right size.

SDS drills go through walls like butter

Get yourself a wire and pipe detector, too.

The one I bought is useless, it is supposed to detect studs too, but when I pick it up it just constantly beeps all the time.

I have one that does that too. I've either got pipes and wires EVERYWHERE... or it's broke.

*drumroll*

A lot of walls have a low level static charge to them, chimney breasts in particular. Put your hand on the wall to earth it and it should stop the constant beeping on cheaper detectors.

In reality, you're better off with a small rare earth magnet than the cheap detectors, as they're generally shit.

Have a look for C H Hanson Magnetic Stud finder on Amazon.

Unless a complete buffoon did the wiring in your house, most electrical cables go straight up or horizontal from power sockets, and plumbing can usually be located quite easily as well.

I thought the accepted method was straight down from sockets, and straight up from light switches?

I have concrete floors downstairs so all the wires from my plugs go up.

Good advice, everyone.

Also: stud detector. I got that joke. I get jokes.

The regs say they can run up, down & either side. Plus IIRC you can have cables from the next room doing the same.

Mind though that DIY nutters don't always read that shit so they could be fucking anywhere

Huh. I just posted about drill woes in the DIY thread. Whoops.

The sparky was not amused to find most of the cabling runs horizontally in our kitchen, including what he surmised was an old 6A boiler cable. That was live.

What do the "drilling capacity" specs mean, by the way?

The max sized bit it can reasonably handle.

Guessed so, thought it was worth checking. Ta.

So the slow/super-heavy drill that costs £12/day to hire and that can take a 70mm wood bit would probably work?

After all, why buy a £1.55 bit when I can hire a fucking massively over-powered tool instead for only 20x that?

Hiring a tool is akin to admitting you aren't a man.

You need to buy what you want, even if you never use it again, do you really want to have to hand a tool back after you have played with it? Really?

I dunno, that drill sounds a bit liked I'd be too scared to turn it on in the first place.

I bought a circular saw to cut 18 inches of wood. I now have a circular saw. It was a bloody expensive way to shorten something by 4 inches, but circular motherfucking saw!

I rented a post borer the other week.

The rental man told me the following story:

"I used to work putting fences up, and used one of these day in, day out. There were always two of us to hold the borer, but my mate was getting coffee or something and I decided I was the man and could do it on my own. I lined it up, touched the throttle, and the next thing I remember I had gone through the fence we were replacing and my mate was slapping my face. So don't use it on your own."

I have a handy circular saw. It only rebounded towards me/Helen half a dozen times while I was cutting various bits of wood and floor.

See also the Dremel, a blade of which shattered into 3 pieces while Helen was using it.

Oops, this is the drill thread, not the DIY thread.

A Dremel is not a manly tool at all. In fact I would argue that it's not even a tool, more a "hobby gadget".

If its purpose it to break blades each time you use it, then it's remarkably good at its job.

AE?

Indeed. Had a bit of disc ping off the centre of my glasses, which was a good object lesson for me...

The two most expensive tools I own are both saws. One's a Makita sliding compound mitre saw and the other is a DeWalt plunge saw with a rail. I'm the worlds worst at buying tools rather than hiring them, though there are exceptions if I think I'm only going to use something a couple of times.

I didn't say it was manly, just an example of thing I bought recently for one thing. In the end used it for about 3. Probably never come out again though, it was a bit pants.

Dewalt stuff is made for builders that use them 8 hours a day hence the price.

I use Black and Decker stuff (who own Dewalt as well), its good stuff , they have an office next to mine and have sales 3 or 4 times a year with 30-50% off.