What weight SDS drill?

[tommcdonna]

I want to buy an SDS drill but I'm not sure what weight I should be looking at.

I envisage using it for wall chasing / socket box cutting, together with general hole drilling duties.

There's a Hitachi (DH24PC3) that's caught my eye as it has locking roto-stop that weighs 2.3kg, will it be up to the job or do I need something heavier?

I handled a 6kg drill in Homebase but it felt quite unweildy and it was physically very bulky, I don't imagine it being too easy to use for the general hole drilling duties.

 

[nickjb]

There isn't really a 'do it all' weight. 2-3kg is nice for drilling, 6kg is good for chasing and breaking. For DIY use you could get a cheapy big drill for occasional use or even rent one. A nice 2-3kg sds is a good tool to have.

 

[tommcdonna]

Thanks for the reply.

Two more questions for you (or anyone else):

I understand a heavier drill will be nicer to chase with, higher weight = less impact delivered to the user, but will a 2.4kg drill be able to do the job, just less comfortably?

How important is roto-lock to do chasing? (that's roto-LOCK, not roto-stop I'm talking about)

 

[Paul Barker]

the lock helps a lot as you always know where the flat blade will be when you put it to the work. Much better.

I have all weights of drill. I can only talk about hiltis and don't know actual weights so you would have to research that.

The lowest power I would go to for chasing is a te30m Below that you may aswell hit a chisel with a lump hammer, and actually even when you use that weight of tool the right man on a shisel and lump hammer is better. But he will get fatique more quickly than if he is holding a drill.

But very quickly a 30 becomes inadequate.

The other day in a cellar with rendered walls we were chiseling render off, and we went up the sizes from the 30m (which was totally inadequate against hard render ) to the te50 which is my lowest powered sds Max machine. But soon I realised this was underweight for the task in hand, and went for my te60. This was the first size which was up to the job. But as there were two of us working I got the te75 also to the job. The te75 was the winner. It weighs quitye a bit more than the te60 but the extra effort of carrying the weight paid off in productivity.

With that tool in hand we had the job done in a matter of minutes. the te30M would have been pecking away all day.

Any of the cheap diy versions of these types of tool would be broken after a few of these jobs would render the user bandly fatigued and would have taken longer to use.

I hope you can convert my facts into weights so you can shop. But be aware it is also about vibration control active torque control adequateness of clutches aswell when you use the tool for it's other function drilling.

A secondhand te75ATC is a great investment, an absolute bargain and very likely to last a very long time. TE56 may be more in your market you can get an AVR ATC version quite reasonably.

The te 6c and te7a or c is a toy not worth using as a chisel get much better result with hand tools.

 

[r896neo]

I whole heartedly agree with nick, If you bought a bosch blue 2kg and don't use it for chiselling chasing etc it will last your whole life, use it for breaking chasing etc and it'll certainly shorten its lifetime. That said it will probably still last a long time but i would do exactly as suggested and buy a decent powerful 2kg sds and either hire a 6kg or buy the semi-disposable type 50 quid jobbies for chasing etc as they will last for a decent while and you can simply buy another one or get it replaced under warrenty.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I bought a s/h Bosch GBH 4 DFE a few years ago - seems fine for DIY use.

I want to buy an SDS drill but I'm not sure what weight I should be looking at.

As you see from the replies so far it really depends on what you're going to be doing with it. 4-6kg should be fine for chiseling chases, cutting socket boxes, core drilling etc, but if you're going to be doing what is almost demolition work then you'll need something heftier.

I handled a 6kg drill in Homebase but it felt quite unweildy and it was physically very bulky, I don't imagine it being too easy to use for the general hole drilling duties.

Yup.

I suggest picking the SDS tool to match the chiseling/chasing etc you plan to do, and also getting a decent 18-24V NiMH/Li-ion cordless for the general duties.