I’m thinking of getting a new hammer-drill (corded) for drilling in concrete, something pretty heavy duty, say, that I could drill 9″ with a 3/4 bit if I had to set some retrofit anchor bolts with epoxy, for example. I’m looking at the Bosch SDS-Max, but wanted to hear what BT’ers are using.
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you already know the answer...
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I like Bosch and Hilti for hammer drills. If it were to be used daily, I'd spring for the Hilti. Weekly/monthly then I'd go for the Bosch. But if you could justify it in any way.... spring for the Hilti no matter what. Their tools are just plain slick.
I use a Bosch Bulldog Extreme to set 500 3/8 anchors @ day with no problems. It is in constant use all day long and never heats up or gets tired.....I am extremely happy with it.
Have an older Bosch 0611, can drill 3/4" hole a foot deep in about 1 minute.
Have always had good luck with air impact hammers and plain old star drills also.
I really like this Bosch:
http://www.coastaltool.com/cgi-bin/welcome.pl?ref=froogle+page=/a/bosch/11236vs.htm
Cheap hammer-drills are for torturing your apprentice. ; )
I have the same one. Works fine for occasional use. I have used the biggest SDS Max drills from the rental yard and those are a different animal, and more than twice as much money. If I did daily seismic retrofits I'd get the big gun. Or maybe switch careers.
Huck,
I bought a Hilti after trying both on a piece of granite The Hilti went thru the granite like it was wood while the Bosch took a little more time with each hole..
I actually wanted the Bosch because to me it just looked better.. But there was no argueing with the speed of the Hilti..
Trust me all hammer drills are not alike I own three, and One of them (red Hammer) I used to bungee cord to the piece of granite I wanted to drill and let it hammer away all morning to get a hole.The Hilti drilled the same hole in less than a minute!
I'm still pizzed off with the Hilti from the time that they used non-SDS bits, I would go with the Bosch; never hade a prob. Lots of luck.
"If all else fails, read the directions"
A lot depends upon how often you plan to use the tool.
Going to one extreme, a 3/4" hole is well within the abilities of any SDS drive tool. I use a Harbor freight model for this use quite often; but such use is not a daily thing for me- and when I do it, I usually am only doing one hole, and standing on a ladder.
If I had a different job- say, one where I had to place dozens of anchors daily- then I would probably want a better tool. Again, in my experience, nothing beats either the Hilti tool, or their anchors.
Hilti. I have a TE-76 and even though Hilti calls the bit something else, they're SDS. My perception is I've never touched a concrete drill that moves faster. I can punch an inch hole through a slab - 4 to 5 inch deep - in under ten seconds. I have no idea what kind of fancy German whiz bang high speed engineering determines how fast it spins relative to how hard it hits but the thing moves right along. I got my first one - a tiny little TE5 for small holes and was just impressed. Thats why i sprung for the bigger one later. No regrets. For a little more budget concern though, the Boschs are pretty good.
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