www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Can you tell which is harder? Is it a Silverline masonary bit or English Cheddar. I found out this morning in a five minute job that wasn't. Mrs D wanted a wall mounted multi shelf unit that will be used for photos and sh*t that women like. It is an Ikea unit that matches the other stuff in what we call our day room but it is just a small room we use occasionally when people we dont know well call or to use the telly if we want to watch something different. Anyway, I digress. I built the unit that was actually a very easy to assemble good design. I place it on my tool box against the wall and get it all level and to clear the skirting and mark the drill points. I grab my bag of rawl plugs and get a couple out noting a 7mm drill required. I bought a Silverline set for a fiver somewhere and use the 7mm to drill the first hole with my cordless. As the walls are block, the first goes in quite easily. The second hits a bloody lintel that is over the door in the hall next to the adjacent partition wall. Of course the six inches I have allowed is not enough to clear it and the drill bit starts bouncing and then bends under my hand pressure. FFS.

I think I will move over to my SDS+ but out of all the bits I have no SDS 7mm grrrr. After a fruitless search I resign myself to a trip to Screwfix. An hour later back with a new Bosch 7mm bit. Drill the hole which is now a bit belled at the mouth so I have to wrap some tape packing around the plug. After that it all goes up okay but it has taken me about three hours to do a job that should have been done in under one.

Of course it is my fault for buying a gash set of drill bits that will work to a point but not touch anything harder than polystyrene.

There is no such thing as an easy job.

DWD

Are these the drill bits you bought?

Tip, keep them chilled, they last longer.

ah

They are much tougher

DWD

You should try the cheap bits with a really good sds. The spades literally snap the first time they touch the wall

The bosch and dewalt extremes are my faves. The dewalts are particularly good

Hilti are better, but I only get work to pay for them! Heller TriJets are also very good and the quad point Milwaukee (try Tool Station) aren't bad, either

Re-Silverline, everything Silverline I've tried has been utter garbage - from saw blades which are blunt straight out of the packet and then shed half their teeth if they hit a small nail to SDS bits which are so bent when new that you might as well fit them on a helicopter as use them in a drill.

The guy at Toolstation knows that if it's Silverline I won't take it. Those Milwaukee MX4 drill bits are excellent but very difficult to source.