A look back at the drills that carried us for 16 years, the replacements that didn't cut it, and the unlikely eBay find that's outperformed them all.
Losing our old faithfuls
This year we lost two of our old faithful workers: our Hitachi 18-volt battery drill, and our Makita mains-power drill.
Our original Hitachi drills — great tools that lasted about 16 years, thoroughly abused, drilled holes far bigger than they were designed for, dropped, left outside, and I can't speak highly enough of them. They were made in Japan (all Hitachi tools are now made in China, I'm told).
The first to give up was the Hitachi 18-volt battery drill. It had done a lot of work — dropped, covered in epoxy, asked to drill holes far bigger than it was ever meant for — but it kept going, and was a genuinely amazing drill.
Trying to replace them
So what did we look at as a replacement? First we tried Makita 18-volt drills, but they just couldn't cut the mustard — within two days we'd burnt one out, and the other was sent back faulty.
Makita failures
Our large mains Makita burned out drilling the holes through the keel for the ballast keel — these holes are 52mm in diameter and roughly 700mm in length. It had been a good drill, but it couldn't cope. The replacement was £600, and we weren't convinced the power was even up to the job compared to the one we'd burnt out.
So we were drill-less, and our usual suppliers couldn't offer us anything better. I found a Hitachi 18-volt battery drill and ordered it. It's proved okay, but not a patch on our original Hitachi — it's made in China, it's cheap, and it feels light in your hands; the chuck has been a problem, but it's holding up for now. Would we buy another? Not without looking around first and trying something else. I think Hitachi dropped the ball here — cheaper to make, and it takes the standard 18-volt battery, but the guts of the machine just aren't as good as our first one.
An unlikely winner
As for our new mains drill — that's been an eye-opener. We ordered one off eBay for £98, and it's been great. It's ugly, the switches are chunky, but it has real power, and you can grease the gearbox, which has metal gears. The holes we were grinding out a day at a time with our old Makita mains drill — this beast did all 12 remaining holes in a single day. Top marks so far.
New mains drill
The black circular plastic cover lets you grease the gearbox
From eBay, but a genuinely good bit of kit
