Thread: Cordless drill/driver advice

Originally Posted by NGK

Hi all
My son is a first yr apprentice furniture/cabinet maker specialising in making hardwood furniture and he is due for his tools allowance and needs cordless drill/driver combo whats would be best for value (not cheap not over priced) and reliabilty and what should look out for features,brands,warrenties etc Thanks for the advice

Bunnings in Northland Preston are currently selling an 18 volt lithium ion Makita drill/driver which comes with 2 batteries (3.0 AH) and charger for $349. As a bonus, Makita are having a promotional offer that if you purchase an XPT model drill/driver you will recieve a free lithium ion battery.
Might be worth having a look.

Cheers, Evan

Originally Posted by NGK

Hi all
My son is a first yr apprentice furniture/cabinet maker specialising in making hardwood furniture and he is due for his tools allowance and needs cordless drill/driver combo whats would be best for value (not cheap not over priced) and reliabilty and what should look out for features,brands,warrenties etc Thanks for the advice

G'Day "NGK",
My advice would be to go to one of the "trade tool shops" as a number of them are in on the government apprentice tool kit deals so the young blokes get good value for money while buying TRADE QUALITY tools.
Cheers, Crowie

If he is going to be a tradie, buy top of the range first time, then have it for life. (Well, not many power tools last a lifetime anymore, but you know what I mean).

Tell him to look at what the other tradies he works with and ask them why they have the tool they use.

That should confuse him even more than going to a shop and looking at all the different makes and models

I had makita 9v as the first drill 25yrs ago and wore out 4 of them and numerous batteries.
Then for 7yrs had a dewalt 18v. Not bad but not impressive due to battery and mechanical failures.

For the last 4yrs I have the hitachi 18v 3amph lithiem and as a carpenter it gets a fair flogging. I am still using the original batteries and the only mechanical problem is the chuck wont hold bits under 2mm due to my habit of spinning the chuck under power to tighten it.

Others are saying the millwalkie are the flavour of the month.

Be positive about what you get as it tends to lock you in as the batteries are not interchangeable and dont be sucked in by the loudest super radio.

Crowie makes a good point, I recently visited the new Melbourne shop of TradeTools - Serious Tools...Seriously Discounted!

they are in Dandenong and are open on Saturday mornings. I went there for a specific type of item that only they appear to sell. They have an excellent website where you can peruse stock and compare.

Whilst there, and after I had finished doing what I came to do, I then perused the entire shop. The equipment they stock, was certainly trade orientated, not weekend warrior orientated, although they certainly cater in a lot of instances to the weekend warrior as well.

Rat52 also makes some very good points.

One of my brothers is an upholsterer, about 10-12 years ago he purchased some Panasonic cordless equipment. It gets used every day, they are still going with one battery change each. They are beautiful to use, perfectly weighted and fit your hand like a good glove.