I have a shop full of Porter Cable stuff and love it all.

I have the 12V Cordless drill for light-duty shop work. The biggest
job I used it for was hanging the 3 pressure-treated rails for 600
feet of privacy fence. I used 3" decking screws. The drill did great
for this job, with a battery lasting around 3 hours, and the spare
only taking 45 minutes to charge. The drill had enough torque to push
the screw head through the face and bury it until the threads left the
other side. It has enough torque to drive un-piloted gate-hardware
bolts into wet pressure treated pine (9/16" heads, 2" long?).

For the fence, I went through about 7lbs of screws with no lapses in
charge with two batteries. Decking would require more rapid use, so a
12V may have a tough time keeping up. If you keep the charger
air-conditioned or in a freezer, it may work out though. Personally, I
wouldn't (and didn't) buy a big drill just for the possibility of an
extreme 1-time job like a deck. I can just pull out the cords for that
-- decks don't move very far anyway. Most of the many hours of use the
drill has gotten are in the shop working on small projects.

My dad has a couple 14.4V DeWalts and loves them. I just can't bring
myself to get any DeWalt stuff when I've had such great performance
from my gray and black tools. I have a full shop, and the only yellow
thing in it is a box of DeWalt HSS drill bits.

-Mike


(Sathyan Sundaram) wrote in message . com...
Please recommend a few cordless drill/drivers to try out? Right now I
have a Skil 6265 (5 Amp corded) but would like to get a cordless for
outdoor use and where an outlet is not convenient.

I'd like to buy something from DeWalt, Porter Cable, etc. or
equivalent. Under $200. For woodworking, decks, household repairs.
3/8" variable speed.

thanks
Sathyan