Mat's BX Blog

[Vanny]

which I doubt that you would from an Aldi special...

Power Craft reckoned they could supply brushes after 8 years, though i found them in the garage in the end. I guess brushes are pretty standard sizes, but they didn't just laugh at me at least. I've a £15 bnq corded pistol drill that has had some serious abuse in its life (such as drilling 20mm holes with an auger through 4" pressure treated timber a great many times!) and after about 8 years its starting to get a bit sloppy. But then i've also got a black and decker metal cased pistol drill thats probably 30+ years old, and it's in rather fine fettle given that when i first got it, it appeared to live under water.

When i worked in the building game, we had a load of the early Dewalt XRP cordless drills, and while they where tough little buggers, well weighted and a pleasure to use, they did have to go in for repair every other year. I always felt at £300 odd a piece that they should have performed just a little bit better. Similar to the £800 Dewalt sliding mitre saw that pushed a brush end through the armature and obliterated the motor, pretty naff design given the cost.

I do hate buying new tools though, you never know quite what your gonna get with everyone owning every one else (such as black and decker owning dewalt and red devil).

[Wooscary]

I'm definitely of the opinion it is better to repair than replace.

Also think it's nice if possible to get something of the best quality one can afford at the time.

I've got a Black and Decker drill that was my Dad's, definitely older than me by a few years. It probably
needs new bushes/an overhaul now, but I bet it would keep going for ages after that.

Fixing stuff is great fun.

[toddao]

Yeah, those old Black and Decker drills are like ancient relics going on and on and on... I have one I found in a house I moved into in the Uk years ago and one I found here. It seems that over-engineering was common back in the 60s/70s.

I had a 1997 Bosch sander that had to be repaired a few weeks after I bought it and they told me in the Bosch shop what was the life expectancy of the thing in hours which I think I had exceeded in a week! It was only meant for amateur DIY type jobs.

My Black and Decker is like this but a nice 70s shit brown tone . Reminds me of my dad who did all his DIY with an orange one

[Defender110]

Yes I remember the year when Black & Decker made quality tools, the drill in the picture is probably one of the last.

[Mickey taker]

That ones quite modern in comparison to my dads ( going by the colour scheme )
The old man's one was gold

[Wooscary]

Yeah, those old Black and Decker drills are like ancient relics going on and on and on... I have one I found in a house I moved into in the Uk years ago and one I found here. It seems that over-engineering was common back in the 60s/70s.

Hey! How old do you think I am?

My Dad's one must have been from the early '80s. I just remember that he never had a problem putting up massive shelves with it, even though our house was built with Accrington stock brick that seems to like melting drill bits.

[Defender110]

That ones quite modern in comparison to my dads ( going by the colour scheme )
The old man's one was gold

I've still got one of them somewhere, more like a mustard colour than gold though.

[Defender110]

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[Vanny]

the drill in the picture is probably one of the last.

Oh i dunno, my dad's 80's plastic green 800w(ish) hammer action corded pistol drill is something of an absolute beast. It's been used to core cut 100mm through brick more than once, and is still soldiering on. Admittedly I did have to change the trigger switch a few years ago, but other than that it's all original! And they still do parts!

But yes, B&D quality is not what it used to be, why they keep up with the chinese i'll never know

[mat_fenwick]

I don't think it's necessarily true to lump all Chinese manufacturing in the same category - they are capable of making quality stuff. It's just that when a company decides to locate manufacturing over there, they're normally doing it on the basis of cost rather than quality. Some of the stuff I've seen feels very well made - at a price though (but still lower than we can compete with over here).

I'm still enjoying the cold crisp weather we're having at the moment, although it's slightly less fun to work in outside (better than rain though). I was swapping the passenger seat in the van last night and it was -6.4 °C according to the BX's display. You know it's cold when your allen key freezes to the workbench! I've yet to see what temperature it got down to during the night, but think it's the coldest so far - the gearstick on the Focus was frozen solid this morning so I could only select 3rd or 4th! Neither worked particularly well as an alternative to reverse...

[toddao]

Blimey, that one in the video clip is really ancient! Yes, I remember the gold ones too.

I recently found on the internet an American dealer in old tools - pre power stuff, a lot of obscure American brands from the early 20th c. but a bit of Stanley, mostly woodworkers tools like planes, hand drills etc. Bloody expensive - up to €500, probably just for collections not for work.

I think THESE electric tools are probably 'the best a man can get' . Just slightly beyond my price range..


You know it's cold Mat when you feel ice forming in your nose as you breath in. Get yourself a bearskin!

[mat_fenwick]

On the subject of expensive tools, when I was struggling with the Focus hub nut I found an impact wrench that would probably have shifted it. Don't think my compressor could supply 140 cfm of air, even if I could afford it!

[mds141]

A girlfriend of mine, had a friend who got a summer job working on the QC line at Makita. Enough said!!

[Vanny]

I think THESE electric tools are probably 'the best a man can get' .

Festool, REALLY? I've not used many of them, but i find them to be over priced flimsy tosh.

Must admit these days the only main stream company that still does half decent tools is Makita, and even then you have to be careful of the low rent and dodgy knock off Chinese copies. I really need a set of decent cordless drills, but by the time i decide if some things worth the huge cost, i'll probably have a sonic screw driver.

[mat_fenwick]

Must admit these days the only main stream company that still does half decent tools is Makita

Funny you should say that...



I've yet to assemble it because tonight I've been out collecting wood seeing as it hasn't rained all week. First I had to move the BX out of the way, and it was the first time I've started it for ages! Fortunately no problems starting, although the ABS light stayed on dimly.



Then I had to do a spot of off roading to get to where the logs were - I'd cleared an old logging track earlier in the year to where there was some 4-5 year old felled wood just going to waste.



I had to cut the logs up a little more to make them easier to lift into the trailer.



And here's a shot of the track on the way back down - it was surprisingly slippery on the way up so had to engage the diff lock.