Have you used SDS chucks like that before? {edit} Okay, saw you've not used one.
My DeWalt, I can pull the chisels back and forth by about half an inch in the SDS chuck.
They're designed to do that from new. To help with transmitting a shattering vibration, avoid the bits snapping and to make it easier to pull them out when they jam in the bricks and concrete.
Using hydraulic breakers is fun, like the JCB's for smashing up big rafts. Not only does the bit move back and forth quite a bit freely in the lock, you can actually bend the end of the pick to break the bits free when they jam - it's sprung. Absolutely wipes the floor with any other method bar sticking one on an excavator.
I have this rotohammer. Works super for walls. Stripped the entire bathroom of tiles, lath and the concrete, and some brickwork in a few hours on my own. About 30-40 rhino tubs worth. The compact hammers from DeWalt are about the strongest they do that are still comfortable to work with over hours with them going over your head (even then, my wrist and shoulder start aching). The mid / heavy ones are too heavy to be constantly moving around with overhead.
Mine has the quick change chuck (so I can click a jacobs on), but not the anti-vibration. The anti-vibration ones seem to loose a lot of watts for the same sized drill - so, less vibration, but longer drilling.
I have one complaint though, the depth stop is basically useless with the hammer on. It just vibrates through the grip before it's even against the wall. And it wouldn't have been hard for them to fix that (make the spring in the catch a bit springier). That's also a useful thing to have when doing wall plug and bolts if you want to avoid going through to a finished side.
Has a clutch for diamond cores.
You don't NEED SDS to do a lot of work, but it starts getting useful for serious stripping, channeling and I've used the DeWalt for digging access holes for pipes in reinforced concrete. Wouldn't try breaking any serious amounts with it though, you need upgrading in the power really for breaking plinths and rafts.
For example, I've been looking at cordless drills for years. But there's never been a good enough reason for me to get one. I can deal with the leads easy. The corded tools are ALWAYS far more powerful, they never run out and they're cheaper. So I'm still using a Bosch PSE that's probably a decade old. Like Burnerman's Hilti, that has seen some heavy abuse. Dropped off ladders, kicked around the floor, pulled by it's cord, out in the sideways rain and cold with me. Give it a wipe clean, and it's still going beside me now (I was using it last night).
D25324K
The Bosch PSE, last night - using a Wera bitorsion quick chuck to swap bits
The DeWalt is on the floor by the side of the bath with a chisel in it. I give it a clean every now and again, a wipe and it'll be looking yellow again. I'm working on a new type of toilet for my brother to use when he's had a few cans, the seat needs to come off, the cistern top is staying off
VINTAGE TOOL PORN - My dad was HOPELESS at DIY even before he died. My mum went Good Life on it back in the 60s? 70s? and bought herself a jig saw. I was using this last night as well. Back when Black & Decker was LSD inspired orange and green - reminds me of tic tacs. Works really well though! Surprisingly. I wouldn't mind seeing more orange leads on things, so I can see them in the rubble.
I'm not kidding about those buckets - spewing out in a stream from the DeWalt
This tramp always turns up in the bath at 2am. If I wash him off with the Daz and give him four pints of Stella, he'll go away
QUESTION
One of the compact hammers on DeWalts site has the word "Tassellatore" instead of a code. If I google that, I think it's Italian for a hammer drill. Why does that one have a name and the others have descriptions?
JCB Beaver Breaker - it's sat on top of an old concrete raft that needs to come up for a lawn
The Garden - quite literally, a building site
MOAR OAP abuse - mum Rough Necking the drain clear. Buy the yellow rough necks, the cheapo spades all end up broken. You can see the JCB pick is burried in the raft. Spades are good, but when you're moving tens of metric tons per day, it's the mini-digger.
3-4 hours worth of wheel barrowing and ONE of the skips that came out full of concrete, tarmac, crazy paving and raft
Raft is gone
Finished doing donuts and honking the horn for today
Testing pH and correcting with sulphuric acid
Testing nutrient ppm and correcting with manure
Chicken Poo
Saw dust
Rotovating - excellent delegation of work to Alex, it hurts A LOT more than you'd think
Grading for drainage
About 3 minutes ago. Still needs work doing (boarders, deck, some more painting, the lawn feeding / pH balancing - it's always best to change large nutrient / pH problems gently, the grass is yellowing because pH is still dropping to acidic and the nutrients are still building)
Need to shift the trellis up a bit, cover that muck at the top and get some climbers going next year. Clematis works brilliantly for rapid, mass coverage and colour. I'd use morning glory or Hawaiian baby woodrose in the US, as they have very pretty flowers (look like they were drawn in photoshop they're that vivid), but they'll die in the cold here
Boarder used to be as high as that semi-circle and cover the wall, making the garden very narrow. Left that bit there for the tree's roots, new boarder will be lower. Garden looks much bigger now. Will look a lot less sterile once spring comes and the plants go in
Layout of the ground floor. Measurements taken with a laser range finger, then fed into google sketchup to make virtual changes and see what they look like from above and how they interact. You can also model the sun and it's path in sketchup by orientating your layout on the compass and choosing your location, then running through the seasons to see how the shadows behave. It's free, easy to use and you can switch styles easily (e.g. here are two of the many, a rough sketch and a render)
Back room sanded, repainted, new door cut, dimmers put in. French window will lead onto decking, of some form, possibly partially covered for fun in the rain. The powers that be DEMAND curtains on there. Knowing people keep CONSTANTLY leave them closed during the day (which drives me crazy), I AM paying out the money and putting an automatic rail on there, or I've wasted all my fk'ing time sanding, repainting the room, rendering the wall outside and painting it white to get some light in there. The sun goes overhead in this room, and it's at the back of the house, so it used to be perpetually like a mole tunnel in there.
Kitchen laid out as per the google sketch, covered in chemical anchor cartridges. Should be tidy by tomorrow or so. The new layout gives it a huge amount of storage space and takes into account flow of people between rooms, to make sure there isn't dead space or narrow sections. The door on the right, to the sanded room, lines up with the one on the left, to the garage & garden
Toilet going in means I can knock out the one upstairs. This was done by a PROFESSIONAL plumber / gas fitter. He literally ran off in the middle of doing it, leaving holes I could fit my hand into, the wrong beading, the door frame hanging off with 2" worth of nail head sticking out and half inch gaps between the moulding and the frame, tiles falling off, under the toilet (his cutouts) is a joke and nothing more, the mosaics had been squashed into inch thick beds of adhesive and were dripping off the walls. The soil waste was emptying to the garage floor, the flexi tails were kinked 180 until practically crimped off. Took me a week of work to do the sink, take the door apart, redo the frame, hang the door, redo the edging, silicon it all, repaint it and so on. And, short of ripping everything back out, I can't fix the wonky tiles. He rogued my mum and started physically threatening me. What a ****.
SDS it, then make it better
I decided to extend this to include loads of pictures that have resulted from SDS and other heavy means, as you mentioned a house make over. Hope you like them!
John
