IndyGarage
Well-known member
A few weeks ago I had to do about 10 floor anchors into concrete - 3/8 inch diameter about 3 inches deep.
I used my milwaukee 1/2 inch drill with the "buzz hammer" function. It took me a full four hours, wore me out, and wore out 3 carbide bits to get those 10 holes in, and I thought I was going to burn up the drill.
I decided I needed to buy an SDS hammer. I've never used one, but I thought there has got to be a better way. I also need something that can help me get tiles up and chip away some broken bricks in the near future.
So I started looking around - I was honing in on Bosch or Makita tools. One problem is Bosch seems to have a dizzying array of model numbers that don't seem to match sizing in any way to the model. As I was researching, I thought the Bosch 11264 EVS seemed to look pretty good - but it's about $575 new. Plus the SDS max bits are all pretty expensive - I wondered if that isn't overkill for me..
So I happened to be Home Depot today, and I always swing by the tool rental, just to see if they are selling anything. Sure enough, they were replacing all their hammers and breakers with brand new Makitas and clearing out the used Hilti's they had.
So they had a Hilti TE - 7c hammer drill sitting there in the case with a $150 price tag. It even had the owners manual, a tube of grease, a wiping rag and they would throw in an SDS plus bit of my choice. I hadn't considered Hilti, but the guy said they are built like tanks. It's a bit less powerful than the one I was thinking about getting, but I thought I could always start out with it, and sell it to somebody else if it doesn't work out. When I got it home and wiped some of the dust off it, I realized this thing is like brand new - I bet it doesn't have more than a couple hours use.
I bought a couple additional bits for it, and decided to try it out on a hole that I skipped when I was using my Milwaukee - because the whole project was taking forever. All I can say is wow! this Hilti drilled the 3/8 anchor hole in about 15 seconds - where the fastest I got any of them done with my Milwaukee is about 10 minutes. And, the Hilti was much quieter, and didn't vibrate the heck out of my hand. I'm hooked.
I used my milwaukee 1/2 inch drill with the "buzz hammer" function. It took me a full four hours, wore me out, and wore out 3 carbide bits to get those 10 holes in, and I thought I was going to burn up the drill.
I decided I needed to buy an SDS hammer. I've never used one, but I thought there has got to be a better way. I also need something that can help me get tiles up and chip away some broken bricks in the near future.
So I started looking around - I was honing in on Bosch or Makita tools. One problem is Bosch seems to have a dizzying array of model numbers that don't seem to match sizing in any way to the model. As I was researching, I thought the Bosch 11264 EVS seemed to look pretty good - but it's about $575 new. Plus the SDS max bits are all pretty expensive - I wondered if that isn't overkill for me..
So I happened to be Home Depot today, and I always swing by the tool rental, just to see if they are selling anything. Sure enough, they were replacing all their hammers and breakers with brand new Makitas and clearing out the used Hilti's they had.
So they had a Hilti TE - 7c hammer drill sitting there in the case with a $150 price tag. It even had the owners manual, a tube of grease, a wiping rag and they would throw in an SDS plus bit of my choice. I hadn't considered Hilti, but the guy said they are built like tanks. It's a bit less powerful than the one I was thinking about getting, but I thought I could always start out with it, and sell it to somebody else if it doesn't work out. When I got it home and wiped some of the dust off it, I realized this thing is like brand new - I bet it doesn't have more than a couple hours use.
I bought a couple additional bits for it, and decided to try it out on a hole that I skipped when I was using my Milwaukee - because the whole project was taking forever. All I can say is wow! this Hilti drilled the 3/8 anchor hole in about 15 seconds - where the fastest I got any of them done with my Milwaukee is about 10 minutes. And, the Hilti was much quieter, and didn't vibrate the heck out of my hand. I'm hooked.