On Sunday, June 15, 2014 6:10:32 AM UTC-5, Mike Marlow wrote:

For someone who does not need to rely on his tools for his job, and can

therefore take a small chance on things, I'd consider HF for cordless drills

these days. I don't own any of them so I have no first hand experience, but

I know several people now who have purchased them. They work - that simple.

I don't know how they compare to some of the other names that have been

talked about in this thread, as far as torque goes, or even longevity, but

the price is certainly a lot better.

Hard to tell what to think of their cordless drills these days. I have a couple of non professional friends that use HF drills, and they seem "OK". I think the shortcoming is in the actual torque generated and the battery life. When I found out that one of my buds was going to screw the fence pickets on his new fence (why... why do people do that?) I asked him to let me know how many 1 1/2" screws it would drive. IIRC, it was around 100. Not awful, but not good for an 18V drill.

The real problem though, was the fact that it took 6 - 8 hours to charge the batteries if they weren't completely depleted. They didn't hold a charge for more than about 10 days, and if he started with a totally dead battery it was 12 hours for a full charge. So that ruled them out as job site tools; to have a battery run down and then be unusable for the rest of the day just can't work.

But to be fair, that was about 3 years ago, so they may have upped their game on those drills as they have with so many other of their tools.


Most of us don't need a cordless drill to bore 1" holes through 6x6's all

day long - and some may never need to do that. Like everything else - it

all depends on the need. The HF drills will drive 3" deck screws all day

long, day after day.

Most of us "professionals" don't have the project requirement that beats the crap out of tools day after day. Sometimes you do; for example, if I am replacing shingle roofing it isn't unusual for one of my guns to shoot nearly 5,000 nails a day! So that gun is something I spend the money on. But the only other tool I have that gets the same amount of use is my circular saw. Being brought up in the trades as a site carpenter that was the main weapon in my arsenal.

Even if a tool goes down these days there are so many big box store around that most can easily be replaced. Even my "professional only" tool outlets don't sell many premium tools these days, but specialize in carrying industry specific tools, not premium products. And since it is usually more expensive to repair a tool than it is worth, most broken tools wind up in the trash anyway of the guy that bought it feels he got his money's worth.

And since now and then I lend tools to the guys that work for me, I really don't want to invest much in job site tools. Most guys these days don't take care of tools and frankly (speaking as a carpenter/woodworker), don't know how to use them correctly. So sometimes from that aspect alone, less is more.

Robert