Drills ours died

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hitachi drills scaled

During this year we lost two of our old faithful workers, these were our Hitachi 18 volt battery drill and our Makita mains power drill.

 

hitachi drills 3
our original Hitachi drills these were great tools they lasted for about 16 years thoroughly abused drilled holes bigger than they were designed for. They were dropped left outside I can not speak highly enough of these, they were made in Japan (all Hitachi tools are now made in China so I am informed)

The first to give up was our Hitachi 18 volt battery drills. Now these had done a lot of work, been dropped covered in epoxy been asked to drill holes far bigger than they were supposed to, but they had done it and were amazing drills

So what did we look at to replace them with?

Firstly we tried Makita 18 volt  but this just could not cut the mustard and within two days we had burnt out one of these the other was sent back faulty

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Makita failures
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Makita failure

Our Large mains Makita burned out drilling the holes through the keel for the ballast keel these holes are 52mm in diameter and approximately 700mm in length, it has been a good drill but it could not cope. The replacement was £600.00 but we were unsure as the power etc was not up on the drill that we had burnt out.

IMG 20181229 144754

IMG 20181229 144745

 

So we were now Drill less and our usual suppliers were not able to help us with anything better, I found a Hitachi 18 volt battery drill which we ordered. This has proved to be ok but not a patch on our original Hitachi drills  its made in China  is cheap and it feels light in your hands the chuck has been a problem but at the moment it is ok would we buy another  not without looking around first and trying  something else, I really think Hitachi dropped the ball by producing a drill that although cheaper to make and takes the standard 18 volt battery  the actual guts of the machine is not as good as our first one.

 

As for our new mains drill, well that has been an eye-opener, we ordered one off of eBay 98.00 GBP and it has been great it is ugly the switches are chunky but it has power and you can grease the gearbox which has metal gears. The holes we were grinding out with our old Makita mains drill we were taking a day per hole this beasty did all remaining 12 holes in a day so far top marks

 

mains drill 4
new mains drill
mains drill 2
the black circular plastic cover lets you grease the gearbox
mains drill 6
e bay but a good bit of kit

 

 

 

 

 

 

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