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Burned up my hammer drill, need a new one.

dpbellus | Posted in Tools for Home Building on February 12, 2010 08:29am

I was mixing a bucket of joint compound today and burned up my drill. I normally use a 1/2″ chuck milwaukee drill for mixing, and have never had a problem with it. However, I didn’t have it close by, and instead I used my 1/2″ chuck harbor freight dril, thinking it would handle the job. It lasted about 20 seconds and started smoking and sparking; I doubt its worth fixing. From now on, I’ll stick with the Milwaukee for mixing. But, the problem is that the Milwaukee, although an excellent tool, is not a hammer drill. The harbor freight drill is a hammer drill. I bought it with the intention of upgrading if it died, however the Milwaukee hammer drills aren’t cheap. I usually only use a hammer drill for drilling small holes for Tapcons, or other screws into masonry. So, I need to buy a new hammer drill, but can’t decide on corded, cordless, better brands, etc? I don’t need one for heavy work, just the small stuff I mentioned, but want to get one that will last.

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Replies

  1. junkhound | Feb 12, 2010 10:09pm | #1

    Bosch corded, probably sds for your needs is OK. Spline or sds max is better if you do a lot of concrete drilling, but the bit set will cost more than the drill unless you find a good used one. Check craigslist, pawn shops, etc..

    Surprised you smoked the HF drill in 20 seconds, have about 15 different HF electric motor tools from garage sales, none of them have smoked a motor - most of them were cheap at garage sales due to bad cords, all the motors were good.

  2. Snort | Feb 13, 2010 09:31am | #2

    This is from JLC... sds seems like where the action's at... for that matter, so does JLC.

    http://forums.jlconline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51161

  3. User avater
    xxPaulCPxx | Feb 13, 2010 12:26pm | #3

    Didn't FHB just do a review
    Didn't FHB just do a review of hammer drills?

  4. bubbajames | Feb 13, 2010 10:44pm | #4

    Metabo, bosch or the old rigid that was made by metabo get my vote. Love the old Rigid For it's pulse feature. Great for removing stuborn screws (kinda like an impact driver. Got mine on E-bay, I see theres one up there now for about 50 dollars.

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