Hammer drill

Dave H (MI)

Well-known Member
What is a good one? I have a Porter-Cable unit that I bought at Lowes years ago and just used for the first time last summer. My first issue is that it does not seem to do anything different whether it is switched to hammer or normal. Never had a hammer drill before so don't know what is normal. My second issue is that I was drilling holes in a footing I poured about 9 months earlier so that I could insert rebar with epoxy for a block wall. About half way thru the drill started to smoke and I could feel it had gotten really hot. I gave it more breaks after that but it really was not up to the load. This summer I will drill a lot more holes in concrete. Some will be in fairly fresh slabs to put in anchors for grain bins. The rest will be drilled into a decades old footing for rebar to rebuild a block barn wall. Thinking I need something HD?
 
A lot depends on how large in diameter the holes are. I bought a Harbor Freight (actually, I believe it was from one of the Cummins traveling tool shows but they're pretty much identical) and it worked so well and was borrowed so often I bought another one for my own use, and then bought a good Makita as I used the two cheapies so much it was worth my while to step up to a larger, more powerful unit. If you're doing large holes (granting "large" is subjective, but probably over 1/2" will do for the purposes of this discussion) you may be better served by getting something purpose-made to be a hammer drill, not just a drill with a hammer switch. I believe it was Stan from Oly Washington who's posted in the past that he's had good luck with the larger HF model that takes specialty bits--SDS, SDS Plus, or another of the various proprietary ones. These will greatly cut down on a common problem with cheaper hammer drills--having the bit slip in the chuck. If your wallet will stand it, Bosch, Metabo, Hilti, etc. are all good names, but both the drills and the bits get mighty spendy, and some of the proprietary systems will ONLY work in one particular model of drill, which cuts down on their availability and of course raises their price even further.
 
like TimV , i have a chicago electric from harbor freight. paid $25 for it on sale. works good for my use, plenty of power.
 
I have a Bosch rotary SDS that works great. Plenty of power and does not pound like a hammer drill while in my opinion drilling faster.
 
Yours will heat and fail if not actually making the whaling medium frequency vibration noise. Some have a collar that rotates to drill screw hammer positions, but the clutch pointer must also be set correctly. They are usually good drills. JUim
 
I bought a HF hammer drill and it wouldn't hammer when switched. Finally figured out that the grease was "set up" enough to hold the hammers. Put an old, dull bit in the chuck and held it against a hard surface to make the drill work. Hammers broke loose and drill works just fine making holes in concrete.
 
I have a 20 year old 1/2 inch Bosch hammer drill that has held up well. The hammer action is much noisier than regular drilling.
 

I bought the least costly hammer drill I could find at Lowe's. It is a SKIL corded. It has done everything I asked of it without complaining.
 
I bought a HF hammer drill. It did pretty good but didn't last long. I looked into buying a different brand but the price sent me back to HF to get another. This one is lasting. Either way both were a good value.
 
Hello Dave H (MI)

It is probably not going in the hammer mode. Concrete drill may NOT go through rebar. You should feel and hear the drill in the hammering mode. Gear box is stuck on drilling ONLY. Check the grease,

Guido.
 
Hammer drills are not up to the task other than the occasional hole for household things. If you need to drill a lot of holes 1/2" or bigger then buy or borrow a rotary SDS hammer. I have drilled a lot of concrete and would not waste my time with a hammer drill no matter the brand.
 
I bought a SDS max type from HF several years ago for a fairly large project. Entire neighborhood knows I have it and borrows it. Never gave a hint of trouble.
 
Hilti or Bosch sds hammer drill....expensive...but won't let you down....think about getting everything ready and laid out, then rent a good one. gobble
 
Food for thought: If you rent one and it doesn't work, you can take it back and get a bigger one. If you buy one and it doesn't work.....then it's not such a good deal/buy.
 
Hi, I wore out a hilti hammer drill. It had an att't for 90* so you could get into a confined space. I bought a Makita 1/2 in about 30 yrs ago. It has drilled in concrete and rock.Still is good. But paid about $500on sale. Ed Will Oliver BC
 
I would recommend Hilti as well, you'll pay a little more, but they have always been quality. I have a nice older TE 52, which is a pretty good size hammer drill, demo hammer. It's very useful and although its huge, I was still able to get the reducer for the chuck and can use small bits with it as well. It's before they changed their logo from yellow to white, early 80's, works like new but I've taken good care of it, especially if working in dusty conditions, I take it apart and clean it thoroughly.

They will have a size appropriate for your needs, Hilti bits seem to outlast others too.

For those fresh concrete slabs with fasteners, you had best wait the full 28 days for the concrete to cure before using expansion, sleeve or epoxy anchors.
 
This is not the worst idea I have heard. I am not sure how much use I will have for the thing once I put in the anchors for the bins and rebar for the barn. This might be that rare case where a rental makes sense. I usually don't like to, but I could get a better one rented than I would be willing to pay to buy.
 
I'm getting the message that my drill is not switching. I'll have a look at it when I am out there next time and see if there is a problem.
 
Grain bin anchors can be put in when the concrete is poured- would anchor better anyway. Takes some pre-planning and measuring.
 
I used a Hilti TE 60 hammer drill (drill or chisel) for 30 years before it had to be rebuilt. It uses bits sized like SDS, but without the long groove. When it was new it outperformed most. I think a lot of new ones perform as well now. I know that Bosch is hard to beat. The technician that finally rebuilt my TE60 said not to ever lend a hammer drill out, they are only going to hammer so many times in their life.
 
+1 on the HF unit. Am cautious about HF power tools but took notice when a crew came thru at work, installing lots of new conduit & wiring in our building and quite a few others. They used the heck out of their HF SDS unit (one that looks like something from Rambo), standing on ladders punching thru block & poured concrete. I finally asked one guy how often they had to replace it...he said this was the first & only one & it hadn't worn out yet. I bought one later - with a coupon - and have been real happy with it.
 
I have a cheapo Klutch SDS rotary hammer from Northern Tool. Bought it a couple years ago for one project. It cost less than the gas to make two trips to a rental place from here. I figured if it lasted the one project, it paid for itself. I use it enough that when it does die I will probably buy a better name brand one.
 
I've got a Bosch SDS and it works great. Had it for 15 - 17 years and it has drilled about anything that can be drilled, use the chisel tool for chipping concrete away and removing tile, spear tip chisel for busting rock, driving ground rods, just all sorts of uses. An SDS will give you options for different types of bits.
 
If as you say you bought one years ago and only used it once recently, this isn't a tool you need to buy. Do you own a good corded drill? Usually more power and half the price.
 

I do not have a tool rental place handy, so I bought the inexpensive, corded, SKIL hammer drill. At the time I had only 5 holes to drill for 3/8" anchor bolts, and the SKIL performed flawlessly. Recently I took on another project of installing storage shelves in my basement. Concrete block construction. I drilled and installed about one dozen of the 3/8" anchor bolts, and drilled and installed over 100 1/4" concrete anchor screws. The SKIL never whimpered, never got hot, never offered to quit. It simply did what I asked of it. I may never need to drill another hole in concrete, but the drill has still paid for itself.
 
I have a Milwaukee SDS drill that's been good for a few holes here and there.

Used the Hilti brand in construction. I'd consider them the Cadillac, but they're expensive. Then again, downtime is expensive.

There's a night and day difference in the regular hammer drills and the SDS drills.
 
Hi Dave,

As TimV mentioned below, I have praised Harbor Freight's SDS rotary hammer on this forum more than once. I consider it one of the truly good tools HF sells. I consider Hilti to be the gold standard for this type of tool, and I have the highest respect for Bosch tools in general. If I needed to make holes in concrete every week, or every day, I'd feel that the much higher cost of a Hilti could be justified. But even then, I'd probably wait for the HF rotary hammer I already own to wear out first, and I've already been waiting almost 20 years for that to happen. After using it for the first few jobs, I was so impressed with it that I bought another one in the expectation of having to replace the original eventually. But the original keeps working just as well as when it was new, and it probably has close to a hundred hours of actual drilling time on it.

Another consideration about the Harbor Freight SDS rotary hammer is that the replacement bits are cheap. A set of five 12" masonry bits 5/16" to 1" costs $18, which is probably less than the cost of one Hilti or Bosch bit, and I've found them to be completely adequate.

Stan
HF SDS rotary hammer
 
I have a sds hammer drill from HF and it has been excellent, and the 12 inch bits too. For what I paid for it, you understand! But I have had it for 8 years and used it occasionally and it has been flawless.
 
Wow...$89.99??? Almost scary to think of buying it but several people have said it is a good unit. I'll have to run over there and look at it. There is a HF just over in the next town.
 
Was chipping concrete with the chisel on a HF 1/2 inch hammer drill which I bought just for that job figuring it might last one job. I had to chip a lot of concrete to remodel a bathroom. I work at it quite a while and then turn it over to my son who is about 235lb an 6'4 and told him to lay into it and when it blew up we go get another one and use it till it blew up to get the job done. I stood up to all me and him could give it over two days. I still use it around the farm and it is still going. I would not have believed it.
 
I have been on CL. I see a lot of them have bits in the case with the drill. I'm just a little worried about buying one that is worn out, seems to be a trend in my life the past couple years. I have seen a few for good prices, though. Tempting!
 
On Sale NOW @ Harbor Freight!
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Dave, if you can get ahold of one of their 20% off coupons (I get at least one a week in ads I receive in the mail), you can apply it to that sale price. Individual HF stores vary somewhat in how they deal with issues like that, so it may be that the store you go to will not give the 20% discount on an item which is already on sale, but the store nearest to me does. I don't get to HF often, but when I do, I hate to miss that discount if I decide to buy something that costs more than a few bucks, so I try to keep an unexpired 20% off coupon in my wallet.

Stan
 

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