What’s your favourite power tool brand and why?
Mine is Bosch Professional. Whilst I love Festool the prices are often just too much to justify… My Bosch Professional 18V tools do the job and I’ve had no problems with them!
No favourite brand at all, I find they’re all as good as each other. My kit contains Bosch, Hilti, Makita, Hitachi, DeWalt and ELU and Festool
I also have a sprinkling of cheap tools as well, I find if you use a tool only for what it’s designed it’ll last.
I.e. I have a cheap makita knock off of a laminate trimmer that I paid less than £40 for, genuine was over £140, will it last as long as the genuine? Well with the amount I use it it’ll last years.
Other stuff I buy topend cos I know it’ll take tbe “abuse”
Makita and Bosch stand out well as good performers in my workshop…I have one dewalt tool, which is fine, and lot of older cheaper tools that have also done well for DIY tasks over the years… I certainly feel however that some tool brands are rediculously expensive…Festool for example…made in Eastern Europe from what i can ascertain, but priced for London’s Bond Street…whilst i’m pretty sure there are no tool suppliers in Bond Street, I think you get my drift…there are many examples of ‘same as’ out there…with the only real difference being price - based on product brand name…
My DeWalt 18volt battery drills have served me for over twenty years and have built some impressive things, but my favourite hand tool must be the Fein Multimaster the only near dust free multi tool I have used, impressed enough to buy two one in the workshop (France) and one at home (UK)
I’m pretty sure that without your input your tools would still be sat in their boxes having built nothing…
I like Makita. My mate loves De Walt. But I’ve focussed on 18V Bosch Pro. They’re good (not better than either of the others) but by sticking with one brand I can use the 4x5Ah + 2x4Ah +1x1.3Ah batteries I’ve amassed with everything. The Makita now does duty at my (200 miles away) mum’s thatched cottage - so I’ll always have the appropriate kit there for the jobs she needs me to do. It’s now on its 2nd set of batteries - the now defunct Site ‘brand’. I bought the batteries for about 30% the normal price - which is why the Makita kit is still in action.
For a multitool I’ve stuck with a mains powered Fein … though I’m getting very tempted to get an 18V Bosch body for convenience for lighter work.
Festool is good but I’m not convinced it’s worth the premium … at least for my needs.
I’m with the strategy “get the best tool for the work its required to do”. Brand loyalty is for hypnotised consumers!
I have many chisels, small saws, clamps and other everyday toolen that were inexpensive but highly serviceable nevertheless. (Some were not so inexpensive). I have some Marcou planes that cost a fortune but make all kinds of planing on every kind of timber a pleasure (and produce the desired good results, with ease).
Festool are worth having in some configurations: their domino M&T machines make M&T work rapid and accurate, although the external M&Ts still need the handtools. Their sanders last forever. Their routers are easy to use. I also have Bosch (belt sander, hand planer) Makita (drills and small circular saw) Mafel (jigsaw) and … many other brands.
Generally I like German machines (Scheppach CS, PT, BS as well as the above handheld machine tools). The Scheppach dust sucker is OK but not as functionally good as their other items (not enough suck for CS and BS). They cost but are very good value because of their resilience & accuracy.
DeWalt routers are resilient & powerful if unwieldy. I have a Triton router in a Veritas router table that is ideal (easily configured and bit-changed). A woodrat with a DeWalt router is very useful for all sorts of queer tasks. A Delta/Fox/SIP lathe on a cast iron stand gets used once in a blue moon; a “bigboy” belt sander from the far east; a drum sander of similar type (all from Axminster).
Who knows what else. Various Veritas marking and measuring things, bench bits et al. Stuff from many small British makers, such as Ashley Isles chisels. Two Cherries carving chisels. Saws from Mike Wenzloff in the USA.
Do people do brand loyalty? I have come across the odd fanboy for Veritas, Lie-Neilsen, Festool and others. I never get this as how can they say “they’re the best” if their fanboyism prevents them from buying, using and comparing other brands?
On the other hand, I will never again buy Black & Decker!
Lataxe
Agreed, I think that most people ‘cherry pick’ their tools and don’t really stick to one favourite brand, be that for power or hand tools. What I tend to do is to look at the customer reviews on the Ax site, which I know for a fact are published ‘warts n’all’, so if a majority of users find the tool pretty good, that’s a good enough pointer for me.
Case in point was my recent purchase of the DeWalt router https://www.axminster.co.uk/dewalt-d26204k-2-in-1-router-1-4-952707 which isn’t the cheapest by any degree, but I thought it worth a punt. I have yet to use it by the way, so can’t really say at the moment whether or not it cuts the mustard!
Generally one gets what one pays for. Sadly, the modern way involves sometimes paying for a label - the value of thing determined by a fashion for it rather than its utility.
In woodworking land (and perhaps other more traditional domains) tools are still bought out of a desire for utility rather than how they look or whether some celebrity woodworker has one. Even the Festools can be justified in terms of value-for-money when their long-term resilience, accuracy, ease of use and resale values are taken into account. Well, some of them can.
Contrast this with, say, the world of modern cycling wherein most bikes and bike bits are sold as though they were some kind of frock or handbag. Not all - but an enormous proportion. And hordes of cyclists pretend they’re “racers” by posing on these frocks whilst waving their bike-bit handbag.
Its rare to come across a woodworker who only buys shiny tools to show off in a dust and shaving-free shed. At least, it seems rare in Britain & Europe. There is such a tribe in North America, I know.
In general, Axminster seems still well-bedded within the proper traditional mode of tool. They do purvey the odd new fangle now and then; but a good proportion of these actually are useful rather than just fangly. There Is the other portion, though…
Lataxe
1 Like
Some interesting points here L, in that you appear to be straying into the dubious world of the tool ‘collector’, a person who accumulates shiny lumps of metal with the pretence of using them but who, in actual fact, produces nothing.
In itself, folk are free to spend their hard earned folding on whatever trinkets they like, but the brigade of ‘armchair woodworkers’ who profess to know what to do with their gear but do nothing with it is sometimes a smidge irksome.
Ax do indulge in the occasional gizmo; there’s a thread about one which was started recently, but for the most part they don’t delve into the realms of the ‘must have accessory/bit of kit’ which for the most part are completely unnecessary. As Schwarz points out in the ATC, good furniture can be made with around 50 tools and all the rest is fancy waistcoats. Some of us though (says he with 33 hand planes under the bench 
), do happen to like them…
Yes, it’s no easy thing to avoid consumeritis in today’s world! Still, we must try, as a wallet only has a certain capacity and the landfills are already full.
I do have some tools that are used less commonly. Some of them are indeed rather of the “collected” kind - planes being the greatest offenders as they are so nice and also so specialised, allowing one to justify their purchase for one job (which is perhaps never repeated). Moulding planes. Need I say more?
On the other hand, I’ve learnt that if you buy a very upmarket tool for these one or two special jobs, you can later sell them for what you bought them for or, in the best case, a lot more. Some planes are like this. Even some machine tools! Other tools are inexpensive yet so good they retain their value. Mujinfang wooden planes are like this. I’ve bought and sold half a dozen of the more specialised kind at no loss.
Of course, you must actually sell your redundant items. I do so on a regular basis via ebay and so far I’ve managed to use about 80% of these now-sold items for near-nothing, usually for several years. For example, a Mafel biscuit joiner bought for £200 was sold when the Festool Domino arrived 8 years later, for £185. Such tools are still worth that because they’re build to work very well and last a long time, especially in the hands of amateurs such as me.
Lataxe
Agree on all points. The planes under the bench have not been so much ‘collected’ as accumulated over many years and most are old friends that I’m loth to part with, especially my Norris A1 panel plane which was my ‘go to’ user for many years, now replaced by the low angle offerings from Veritas.
I think I use most of the planes in the 'shop quite often, but there are a couple that I thought might be a ‘good idea’ at the time but which subsequently have never been used (an early Record compass plane and shoulder block from Workshop Heaven)
As others have said, I cherry pick my tools from various brands depending on what I will be using it for, it’s features, and certainly customer reviews. For example, for heavy drilling such as large forstners (where the drill press isn’t feasible) and hammer drilling around the house, I use a DeWalt 18v XRP as they are extremely durable, but for the majority of my furniture work I use the Bosch pro 10.8v drill & impact as they are small and lightweight but have plenty of power for most tasks. I also use a Bosch pro 10.8v jigsaw and power planer, DeWalt ¼ palm router and track saw, Makita sanders (although I’d like to try out the Bosch pro & Festool ranges) and a Festool domino 500, to name just a few. The domino is an excellent machine and I’d love to try out more Festool gear but currently I can’t seem to justify the price tag.
Machinery wise, I use Axminsters own brand almost exclusively, with the exception of my Coronet lathe. The build quality of Axminster stuff is great and very reasonably priced for what you get too.
What a brown nose!, but true I have both a Axminster lathe and band saw and would not hesitate getter anything else from them, power tool wise I’m a makita fan, I don’t really cherry pick because it would hurt my brain to lookin my tool box and see so many brand, I few exemption two Bosch routers and an old black anddecker pro finishing sander.
Over the years i have had many different brand of Power Tools. But the build quality changes dramatically. Dewalt was good ,but sold all my cordless and replaced by Makita. My Draper tools have all been replaced ,as the quality is very very bad,and do not keep any tool spares longer than 6 months, and also they have the worst customer support i have ever had. I have replaced them with Axminster workshop tools,and a lot of Bahco. I find Festool very good. I have found that there is not ONE manufacturer who has everything. Horses for courses.
I’m a contractor in South Africa, originally from the USA. I’ve owned and used all kinds of tools, from starting out small with budget tools to filling out with more durable and powerful tools necessary for the work I do. In the USA, I used mostly DeWalt, Makita and Milwaukee. Here in South Africa, my range has mostly consisted of Bosch and Makita electric power tools (although I appreciate the versatility of cordless tools, the amount of work we do often limits the effectiveness of cordless, except for such things as drills and drivers of course).
With most of our building structures being of brick and masonry construction, hard wearing and powerful tools are required. I love my Bosch GBH 2-28 SDS impact hammer drills, and own three of them. But as good as they are, they are not always powerful and durable enough for really tough and long use. For instance, drilling out 50mm or 110mm cores through walls and concrete sewer pipes, they are just not up to the task, and I often use two drills for the job, interchanging between them when one gets hot to give it a chance to cool down. I’ve spent an awful lot on maintenance and repairs before adding my Hitachi brushless R/H 45mm SDS Max 1500W rotary hammer drill. It’s about three times the size, a bit heavier, but it’s power and production is just so superior that it’s become one of my favourite tools. I have a Bosch electric Jack hammer for the bigger jobs, but the Hitachi has even come in handy for some of the work I used to do with the Jack hammer.
My Bosch 115mm and 230mm grinders are also great and get a lot of use, but I’ve added some new tools that have become invaluable to me. First is my Husqvarna K4000 Cut and Chase. I’ve been toying with the idea of the Makita chasing tool for cutting chasings for conduits, but held off as the Bosch grinders were getting the job done. But the depth limitations when taking out a 230mm wall requiring me to cut both sides (inside and out) and still having to chip out the remaining brick with an impact hammer chisel I found to be excessively time consuming, quite messy, and required rebuilding of the very rough cutout and and weakened wall from the impact of the hammer chisel, I began looking for a more effective tool. The Husqvarna K4000 Cut and Chase allows me to plunge cut through a wall up to 400mm thick using two 230mm diamond blades set up like a chasing tool, with the tool itself fitting into the chasing width. It now serves as both a chasing tool and monster beast that cuts a glass smooth line through a wall for removing walls, creating openings for doors and windows, and just making mince meat of what used to be really arduous and messy work. It is a wet tool, so can’t be used everywhere in remodeling situations, but being able to control the water flow, I can eliminate dust, cool the blades, and confine the “mud” to just below the work area.
My Makita circular saw, orbital sander, multi purpose tool (think Fein), electric planer, cordless drill and reciprocating saw are all great for what they do and make up an integral part of my tool collection. But my new addition of the Festool TS 55 plunge cut saw with guide track has really made an impact on the quality of my finish work. The dustless system made possible with the CTM 36 mobile dust extractor has saved me hours of clean up on job sites and the precision of the cutting with the guide rail is second to none. I’ve also added the Festool DSC-AG 125 and SSC-AG 230 grinders that also utilise the guide rail. My cuts into walls, floor slabs, porcelain tiles, and many other surfaces are so much cleaner and more professional. I’ve actually built up quite a Festool collection now, and am thoroughly impressed with every tool I use. The RG 130 Renofix is simply an incredible tool. What used to take days with a hammer and bolster or a hammer drill with chisel removing old tile adhesive, wall finishes, etc., which never left a perfectly clean and smooth result, now only takes a mere fraction of the time, leaves a smooth polished finish, and again dustless. It too is one of my favourite tools. My Festool range also includes the Planex sander, an orbital sander, a jig saw and router (both of which are also compatible with the guide rail), a cordless drill (with a 90 degree chuck attachment making drilling or driving in tight spaces so much more doable), cordless construction screw driver (using screw strips and allowing either manual or auto driving - manual using the trigger, auto engaging the driver as soon as pressed against the material surface), and cordless insulation saw. They are NOT cheap, but I really am thoroughly impressed with the quality of each tool and the results of the work they perform.
I have three Metabo cordless drill/drivers and a Metabo portable 160mm/330mm thickness planer. But Metabo South Africa has really gone to hell, the service has deteriorated greatly, parts unavailable for months, and the human side just not really interested in customer care has made it a brand I will no longer invest in. What was once an incredible company has, at least in SA, dropped the ball.
Sounds like you need an SDS drill, which is bigger, meatier, and more capable of dealing with the work you are doing…and can also be used in the ‘locked’ condition (does not revolve), and with hammer action as a breaker, to break out areas etc as yo7 need to with a chisel bit… there are a good range available, and also I think cordless battery options available…
Thanks Stu. Yes, I have three Bosch GBH 2-28 SDS Plus drills that I use, but the SDS Plus isn’t always “bigger, meatier and capable” enough for the really big jobs. My newer addition of the Hitachi SDS MAX (with an even larger shaft than SDS Plus) has really come to the rescue. It’s even sometimes worked itself in where I would usually go to my Jack hammer.
I bought a new brand brushless electric screwdriver called Coshare, it is a China brand, they provide electric screwdrivers for TOSHIBA, their counting and anti-floating functions interests me, you can buy one sample for test.
I believe the old established UK names for quality tools have long since gone. I have rechargeable makita drills that have seen a lot of service and they still do an excellent job. Likewise I picked up an unamed rechargeable electric screwdriver in B&Q in a sale for £5, must be 15 years ago and it still recharges and works well. I lean towards How much use will the purchase get… if I intend to use it a great deal I would look to pay extra for quality. If its for occasional use, then the cheaper option will suffice.
