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I need a decent drill! HELP!

BassyBill

BassyBill

Gold Supporting Member
In Memoriam
Mar 12, 2005
18,174
4,621
West Midlands UK
#1
I have an electric hammer drill that's okay but not heavy duty enough. Even with a decent new bit in the chuck, whenever I try to drill the walls in my house, I get stuck when the drill meets something like a pebble embedded in one of the bricks and just won't get past it. I may get two or three holes done okay, and then hit a spot where this is a problem.

I figure there must be something out there that will be brutal enough to cope with this - any advice on what sort of drill to buy or other useful ideas would be very much appreciated.
 
#9
After doing a bit more research, it seems that an SDS drill is what I should be after, so I've just ordered a DeWalt SDS drill (ideal for masonry, apparently) with safety clutch from screwfix.com, for £70 (reduced from £125). Looking forward to getting to grips with that little beauty!! Does that sound like a good choice to you guys?

BTW, to compare US prices, just read $ for £ as that seems to be a good rough guide based on what I've just been looking at.
 
#10
I have 2 cordless DeWalts, one regular and one hammer drill. Never had a problem with either one of them other than the batteries going dead. Pretty much anything by Dewalt, Makita, Porter Cable, or Milwaukee. There are other good brands also check out tool king...i used to buy quite a bit from them. Just stay away from wal mart and black and decker (although black and decker makes DeWalt i think). Also if you don't need to be mobile get a corded drill, I used to install sattelite dishes and security hence the cordless drills. Also get good masonry bits if your drilling brick, brick isn't the easiest stuff in the world to get through anyway.
 
#14
I like Hilti. We use em at work all the time. TE-5 or TE-1 Hammer drills are great. Smaller than a DeWalt(not as long), so you can get them into tighter spots. You can't use them as a regular drill motor though, but they are bulletproof for concrete drilling. They have their own special bits that are made for them with a keyed shank. The bits are expensive but last forever and can drill into really tough concrete and brick.

Bosch makes a real nice 1/2" chuck drill motor/hammer drill too. It's switchable from regular drill to hammer. It's not really made to drill out large holes into tough concrete as it only uses regular carbide tip bits, but if you are just doing tapcons and stuff around the house into cinderblock it should be fine.
 
#16
Masher88 said:
I like Hilti. We use em at work all the time. TE-5 or TE-1 Hammer drills are great. Smaller than a DeWalt(not as long), so you can get them into tighter spots. You can't use them as a regular drill motor though, but they are bulletproof for concrete drilling. They have their own special bits that are made for them with a keyed shank. The bits are expensive but last forever and can drill into really tough concrete and brick.

Bosch makes a real nice 1/2" chuck drill motor/hammer drill too. It's switchable from regular drill to hammer. It's not really made to drill out large holes into tough concrete as it only uses regular carbide tip bits, but if you are just doing tapcons and stuff around the house into cinderblock it should be fine.
Click to expand...
Thanks to you and everyone else for the input. BTW, we have old houses over here in the UK! No cinderblock in this one, it's all brick, built in 1939.

Just to make all our American buddies go "wow", I was brought up as a youngster in a house that was built in 1675. Not THAT unusual over here.
 
#17
bassybill said:
Just to make all our American buddies go "wow", I was brought up as a youngster in a house that was built in 1675. Not THAT unusual over here.
Click to expand...

That's so cool! We were in Salem, Massachussettes last halloween and the houses there were 1600's too! It's weird to think that a 400 year old house is still standing! My house was built in 1942.

Anyways, the regular Carbide tip bits kinda suck for regular red brick. They don't last very long and take forever to cut through. The Hilti bits would work great.
 
#18
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I worked for a few years as a signmaker and we were drilling into brick all the time. The two drills we had were an 18v Dewalt cordless hammer drill and a Milwaukee 18v cordless hammer drill. Both great drills, But I think the Milwaukee was the best of the two. The Dewalt was a bit lighter and easier to handle, but the Milwaukee seemed to be more powerfull.
I'm planning on buying a new drill soon ans based on my experience I'll probably go with the Milwaukee.
 
#19
DeWalt makes the stuff to use around here but a lot of times it's not about the drill so much as the drill bit.

Some are definatly better than others. Sometimes if the going gets to be a real bear you need to get a cold steel pin punch a just whack the snot out of it with a hammer a couple of times to crack whatever is stopping the bit.
 

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