looking for quality drill bits advice

[finest1]

hi all

I picked a Ryobi r18sds-l15s in the Black Friday sale

looks like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ryobi-R18SDS-0 ... B00VEU9JZC


im now looking for quality drill bits or a drill bits set that would cover me for DIY tasks. I also would like a chisel bits as the SDS function is very interesting.


so im interested in your advice and recommendations

thanks in advance

finest1

[Someone-Else]

I got my sds bit set from screwfix, the chisel bit is great fun.Clike here

Oh, and that drill you paid £92.00 for, its only £87.00 on ebay

[OchAye]

Oh, and that drill you paid £92.00 for, its only £87.00 on ebay

He did not say he bought it from Amazon, he said it is similar to that one ... whatever. The ebay version does not have a battery, nor the linked Amazon version but the B&Poo one at £100 has a battery.

To the OP, buy a branded tool set, even if it like most other things it is made in China, e.g. Makita or any of these branded bits and so on. What you will probably find is that the sets have many sizes that are too small to be useful or too short when you need a longer bit. For odd bits which end up costing more than a set I have been buying Heller or Bosch from Toolstation. I wore out couple of chisels that came with an ALDI SDS gadget. I coughed the money for a Heller to finish what I was doing.

[Job and Knock]

OK, so I'm going to be my usual contrary self and say that for 90% of SDS drilling you'll probably only ever need TWO sizes - 7mm for brown plugs (screw sizes 4.0 to 6.0mm) and 5.5mm red plugs (the sort used for electrical fittings, etc). So assuming that you'll be using "standard" (i.e. Rawl-style) plugs I'd start by buying decent quality bits in 7.0 x 160 and 5.5 x 160mm sizes ONLY and then add bits as required. So if you are drilling a lot of deep holes to fix timber studwork you might well need a 7.0 x 210mm next, whilst if your walls are particularly soft (e.g. Thermalite blockwork, etc) you may need to consider going to slightly smaller diameter bits, e.g 6.5 and 5.0mm diameter as well as the 7.0 and 5.5mm bits in order to guarantee a good fix. Try to go for better quality bits with three or four flutes such as the Heller Trijet, but in ny case avoid cheap Chinese brands such as Silverline or ToolPak like the proverbials as their performance is never anywhere near as good (they drill slower, bend more easily and wear out far faster). Good, readily available brands include Armeg, Rawl (both British), Bosch Industrial, deWalt, Milwaukee and Heller - but there are others.

As far as chisel bits go a decent concrete point, a 25mm flat chisel and a "bent" tile remover make a great starting kit and will again cover the majority of your needs. Again buy quality brands and you'll get longer life out of them.

There are a lot of other bits you can get to go into an SDS drill including wood augers (handy for lock mortising), wood chisels (handy for notching out), back box sinkers (to chop electrical back boxes into masonry walls) and wall chasers (to chase-out for wiring) to name but a few - but those are best left until needs arise

TBH I'd say that almost all of my SDS usage is covered by just three drill bits and three chisels. So overall I'd say a cheap set is a far worse investment than a few carefully chosen quality bits

[OchAye]

Interesting that On the basis of this summer that I did not stop fixing and destroying things (outside all of them) I needed 8, 10, 12mm drill bits and longer ones at that. Given what you said it makes sense why my makita SDS (mains powered) came with three freebie sets of bits I could not see the point of.

[Job and Knock]

Interesting that On the basis of this summer that I did not stop fixing and destroying things (outside all of them) I needed 8, 10, 12mm drill bits and longer ones at that.

Go on site and you'll find that the joiners mainly use brown (7mm) plugs whilst the electricians use mainly red (5.5mm) plugs. Those are the two most used sizes by a mile

I detest 8mm plugs such as the Fischer ones. I try to avoid them because they generally require you to pre-drill all the holes in the timber, offer it up to the wall, level (plumb) it up, mark the hole positions, remove the timber, accurately drill the holes, push-in the plugs, reposition the timber and screw to the wall. A right royal faff. This is because 5.0mm (#10) screws, one of the most commonly used sizes for joinery fixing, will pull through an 8mm hole.... This is a time consuming and potentially inaccurate approach to fixing timbers, etc.

On the other hand if you drill 5mm pilot holes through your timber and offer it to the wall, it is then possible to drill through the timber with a 7mm SDS bit, push-in a brown plug, knock it flush with a hammer, insert the screw and knock it in with the hammer to the point at which it is 10mm off flush then tighten with a screwdriver. The timber can then be levelled (plumbed) and the remaining screws and plugs drilled and fixed through in the same way - a far quicker and easier to make accurate way of working. Also a 5.0mm (#10) screw WON'T pull through a 7mm hole because the head is too big which is why it is possible to drill and knock through

10mm I've generally used for Rawlbolts and the like, whilst 12mm and 16mm are more the sort of sizes you'd use on resin anchors - neither task being a primary initial task in my experience and so I'd say they were a case of buy when required. Same goes for stuff like thunderbolts, plugless fixings, etc - you'll tend to use a lot more of them in general use than the red and brown plugs

To the OP: A minor point about plugs and screws supplied with stuff (especially electrical goods) - in general they are pretty poor quality (especially the screws) so most trades I know throw them away and substitute plugs and screws from their own kit. Obviously if the stuff has come with some extra large or odd-sized plugs, etc this doesn't apply, but for 5 to 7mm stuff it certainly does

[OchAye]

Thank you. And fischer plugs were/are my favourites ... they are the good ones for my jobs whilst I have cheaper imitations for friends ;-)

[fin]

i normally try to buy hilti sds bits off ebay.

as above i almost always bin the stupid screws that come with stuff. damn things ha

[finest1]

dear all

thanks for your advice. I certainly will be looking out for quality bits. in terms of brands, any others to add to the list? what about the Ryobi drill bits?

as a side note, I bought the drill on offer during BF off B&Q. it was £100 with charger, battery and a case. the guy I work with used to work as a tradesman and he recommended the Ryobi for what i'd use it for.

any other advice/recommendations please add

thanks

[finest1]

oh, another question, do all the drill bits have to especially for SDS drill ?

[Someone-Else]

You can only put SDS bits in an SDS drill. But that said you can get an SDS to "normal" chuck

[Job and Knock]

What about the Ryobi drill bits?

I'd rank them alongside Makita SDS bits - Chinese and mediocre, I'm afraid

The guy I work with used to work as a tradesman and he recommended the Ryobi for what i'd use it for.

any other advice/recommendations please add

Whilst Ryobi isn't up to full-on trade use we do see "minor trades" (i.e. the guys who don't have to drill many holes or are doing light work such as speaker and alarm installers) using them quite a bit. They are also a good tool for guys such as the building maintenance (caretaker) guys and the like on account of them being a step-up from most of the DIY tools, although I'd have to say that they aren't heavy enough for some of the stuff I tackle.

As an aside, a few years back after some tea leaf had it away with my Bosch 110 volt SDS drill I bought a Ryobi SDS "to get me by". It got me by for about 2-1/2 years before it was sold-on to someone else who'd just had his car done over. I'd already bought a Makita 18 volt cordless and lived with that quite comfortably until I went onto a job which required a bit more brute force - so I bought another Bosch 110 volt SDS drill. About my only complaint was the chuck wasn't quite as concentric as I'd have liked it to be - but it drilled loads of holes for me and kept me working.

oh, another question, do all the drill bits have to especially for SDS drill ?

Yes. Don't be tempted to buy an SDS to ordinary chuck system so that you can use ordinary impact (masonry) drill bits, They are certainly cheap, but their performance is well below what you'll get from a quality SDS bit in terms of speed of drilling and hole accuracy (because having a second chuck will always create some concentricity issues)

Really those SDS bits don't wear out that quickly. In trade use you can often get a month or more out of them if what you are mainly drilling is brick, soft stone or blockwork (and that's hundreds of holes) so a few decent quality ones in the two most common sizes really are a good idea

A couple of recommendations: after use always clean-off your SDS bits and give them a wipe over with an oily rag before putting them away (saves them going rusty), and secondly it's a good idea to put a small blob of grease on the end of one of the bits from time to time just before you insert it into the chuck. That will lubricate the SDS chuck and prevent it sticking. Don't go mad, though, you don't want to drop blobs of grease onto the stuff you are drilling! If you can't find anyone else that does the grease, Makita and Metabo both sell tubes of it, so their dealers should have it or be able to get it