Home DIY

Drawing a pencil line around the perimeter marks any spread / contraction

Shit drill bit? Doesn't even look like it's gone through the plaster. Get nice new masonry bits. Unless your wall is made of unobtainium (unlikely) or concrete (doubly unlikely in your place I would have thought) a cordless should be able to get through it.

Also try a smaller, sharper masonry bit first.

The hammer drill action on a combi drill is never any good.

This. Even on my top of the range Makita combi, I'll almost always grab the SDS to drill into masonry, unless its incredibly soft material.

I drilled into engineering bric, topping my front wall, with my Makita, about 2" deep. Took 10 minutes for each hole I reckon and Christ the noise...

Vaguely on topic - best brand for SDS bits? I keep knackering standard 5.5mm bosch ones.

Anyone tried these expert ones?
https://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-expert-sds-plus-shank-drill-bit-5-5-x-115mm/389pf

Yes they're good. Bosch claim they last 3x longer than standard bits but in my experience it's more like 5x longer if you take care.

How do you take care of drill bits? Avoid overheating?

Avoid overheating?

Bingo!

Rather than putting loads of pressure on the bit to get the job done as quickly as possible: Let the bit progress at its own pace and back it off every now and then to clear waste along the flutes this also lets the cutting head cool slightly.

Tried a zinzer paper tiger, even then I know what you mean.

So something that is common, not seen it before in the UK.

Sound. I’ll pick one up this week and see how it goes! Sick of rebar in concrete ripping the head off the bit.

brand new and first use. Bought the drill before xmas and got a set of bosch bits to go with it. I think it has gone through the plaster but none of the stone

cheers on drill help
@jsabine - will they be much better than a brand new bosch masonry bit in my kit?
Think I might get what @Bobbo linked as I already have a drill @hugo7. Would that work for cutting out bricks from a bricked up fireplace? would i need a new drill bit for the 7mm hole I'm trying?
Looks solid. Replaceable Carbon Brushes - what is that about?

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Replaceable Carbon Brushes - what is that about?

It means it’s a lo-tech motor that has consumable contact points between the rotor and power connectors. Over time / use they wear out.

https://cordlessdrillzone.com/drill-wars/brushless-vs-brushed-motor/

You’d be doing well out of it if you actually wore the brushes out though. That’s a lot of drilling.

It will chisel those bricks out fine I reckon.

Thanks! Any set of attachments you'd recommend?

Something specific to brick removal :)

Would that work for cutting out bricks from a bricked up fireplace?

Stitch drilling is pretty straightforward and will do the job. This is a guide but obviously replace the hole for an extractor fan for whatever shape you need or want.

Alternatively hiring an awl saw will let you cut the mortar out between the bricks with minimal dust

https://youtu.be/M31veSGa0kI

Replaceable Carbon Brushes - what is that about?

The carbon brushes deliver current from the wiring to the moving parts of the motor. Because they are in contact with the rotating parts they can eventually wear down therefore they will need replacing. Cheap tools have low quality brushes that wear down quickly and are designed to be hard or impossible to replace - this is a form of planned obsolescence. Quality tools have carbon brushes that wear much slower and are easy to replace in my experience other stuff fails before the brushes wear to the point that they need replacing.

Sweet thanks! Got a fireplace to put back for decoration. Will want it to pass some air through it (currently draws quite nicely from that hole) so need to see what to fit in that gap in the fireplace. Maybe a black vented bit of wood

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Cheapo Titan/Erbauer SDS will make drilling through that stuff super easy for fifty quid. Only reason I wouldn't get one is if you're short if storage space.

I have the cheapo 850w version from french B&Q, and it has destroyed all that it has been in front of it.

Yup. Even cheap sds > combi drill.

Unless you've got one of the new builds mate from that wet cardboard type of breeze block, on that case just push the rawl plug into the wall with your bare hands.

We had some wallpaper which was really thin and which had been glossed over at some point.
The gloss stopped water getting in (zinnser paper tiger and scoring with a scraper helped a bit, but not much) and the paper being super thin meant it didn't really absorb any water anyway which meant it did a crap job of transmitting water into the old paste.
had to strip a layer of woodchip, then pretty much had to strip the layer of gloss as a separate step before finally getting to the bottom layer of paper.
Took. Forever.

In yesterday's exciting episode at our house, we decided to replace the horrible serving platter ceiling lights that came with the house, with spots. I removed the old lights, drilled the first 68mm hole for the spots, only to then discover that our wood panelled ceiling is only dropped about 30mm from the concrete slab which separates the ground floor and first floor (I don't know the proper name for this structure).
There was just enough room for a GU10 bulb if I managed to drill the hole exactly under the back box where the wires are fed through the concrete. I'm sure that's breaking a few hundred electrical and fire safety rules but hey ho, on my head be it.
Also our first experience using the Philips Hue smart bulbs, takes a bit of set up and getting used to, but very nice to be able to dim everything independantly or have preset 'scenes'.

I think I have the exact same combi drill and bits. The bits, new, made all the difference in my old flat where the shitty ones I had wouldn't even get me in far enough to hang a picture. But I wouldn't imagine they'd be any good on stone. As everyone has said, an SDS is what you want. they usually come with a couple of bits and a few chisel bits. I got the 5kg Titan one for about £60. That has paid for itself in drilling into ancient concrete and using the chisel bit to take down the old monster fireplace.

Lidl are doing 18 packs of 125mm sanding discs for £1.99 (6x60, 6x120, 6x240). No idea of quality, but I'm churning through the bastards I normally get from TS so grabbed a few packets. They also have a corded sander which appears to convert from RO, to detail (triangular type head) to sheet sander. If I didn't recently buy a corded RO I would have been tempted.