John Rumm wrote:
David Hearn wrote:

This sort of reply is probably what I find most annoying about this
otherwise excellent uk.d-i-y group. Someone comes and asks whether a
masonry drill can get blunt, and the reply he gets is "That looks a
poor quality bit - buy a £100 drill and new bits, although cheap bits
make little difference."


You seem to be misquoting there...

The "cheap bits make little difference" part is *only* applicable to SDS
bits. This is not the case with conventional masonry bits.


Sorry, I failed to notice that point. I've certainly had some cheap
masonry bits which actually untwisted (or twisted up - can't remember
exactly) when used! The result was a completely straight piece of metal!

As for the other comments - I don't deny that over someone's lifetime
(or more importantly, the lifetime of the tool) that spending money on a
good tool isn't actually that expensive and may be the cheapest option -
however I'm sure I'm not the only one where money is tight, and whilst
you may spend more over your lifetime buying replacement tools - its the
short term spend which is the most important. Same with our mortgage -
we opted for 30 years over 25 as it made a sizeable difference to the
monthly outgoing. If you look at the extra interest paid over the
lifetime of the loan it's shocking - but £50 per month saving in the
short term is important to us (5 years out of Uni, living in Surrey with
wife and kid).

D