EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
A few months ago there was a thread on Rotary Hammers, or something along the line of drills for drilling into cement. In the thread, there was a link to a comparison test of different brands by JLC, or Journal of Light Construction. Of the different brands tested, the Hitachi was the fastest. It's a mid priced Rotary Hammer, but one I'm not familiar with. I stalled and kept reading and searching for more information before I had to make a decision.
About a month ago, I bought the Hitachi DH40MRY 1-9/16 SDS Max Shank Rotary Hammer on Ebay for $340 plus $26 for shipping.
It's a big drill in a large case. I was suprised at the size of it since my experience before this was with a Bosch Hammer Drill. That was a piece of junk and didn't do very well on hard concrete. I went to Home Depot, then to Lowes to find some bits for it, but neither carry SDS Max bits. I then tried United Rental, who has allot of contractor supplies, and bought a 1/2 inch Bosch bit and a pointed conctrete chipping bit. It was just under $100 for both bits combined with tax.
The job required me to drill 30 half inch holes for anchors into concrete. The first time I used it, I was a little unsure how to even put the bit into the drill, but after that, it was just about the easist thing in the world. Just put the point where you want the hole and hold the trigger. No need to push are add any preasure to the drill, it just about melts through the concrete. I've never seen this before and to say I was happy would be an understatement. It's the easists thing in the world for drilling concrete. It takes no effort at all and the holes were done in seconds.
I also had some concrete to break up. I had rented an electric jackhammer for a day to do most of the demo work, but some areas were too tight for the jackhammer to get to. My helper also got tired and some pieces were still pretty big that he should have broke into smaller pieces.
We tried the pointed tip and switched the drill over to hammer mode. It can either drill concrete, or turn into a small jackhammer. I really don't know what I was expecting, but nothing close to what it did.
Again, just put the tip on the concrete and it melts it's way through it. We found that taking off lots of smaller pieces works faster and easier then big pieces, but either way, it's amazing. Smaller pieces are in the size of softballs.
I've only used it on this one job and those two chores, so I can't attest to how long it will hold up or last, but from thest experiences, I can highly recomend this tool to anybody looking for a Rotary Hammer.
I have one other Hitachi tool, it's a small 2.5 air compressor. It's small enough to carry around to job sites, powerful enough to run to framing guns and fairly inexpensive at $180. It's oil lubricated and came with it's own synthetic oil. It's loud, which I don't care for, but otherwise, it's a good tool.
I'll buy other Hitachi tools now that I've had good experiences with these two.
Hope this helps somebody,
Eddie
About a month ago, I bought the Hitachi DH40MRY 1-9/16 SDS Max Shank Rotary Hammer on Ebay for $340 plus $26 for shipping.
It's a big drill in a large case. I was suprised at the size of it since my experience before this was with a Bosch Hammer Drill. That was a piece of junk and didn't do very well on hard concrete. I went to Home Depot, then to Lowes to find some bits for it, but neither carry SDS Max bits. I then tried United Rental, who has allot of contractor supplies, and bought a 1/2 inch Bosch bit and a pointed conctrete chipping bit. It was just under $100 for both bits combined with tax.
The job required me to drill 30 half inch holes for anchors into concrete. The first time I used it, I was a little unsure how to even put the bit into the drill, but after that, it was just about the easist thing in the world. Just put the point where you want the hole and hold the trigger. No need to push are add any preasure to the drill, it just about melts through the concrete. I've never seen this before and to say I was happy would be an understatement. It's the easists thing in the world for drilling concrete. It takes no effort at all and the holes were done in seconds.
I also had some concrete to break up. I had rented an electric jackhammer for a day to do most of the demo work, but some areas were too tight for the jackhammer to get to. My helper also got tired and some pieces were still pretty big that he should have broke into smaller pieces.
We tried the pointed tip and switched the drill over to hammer mode. It can either drill concrete, or turn into a small jackhammer. I really don't know what I was expecting, but nothing close to what it did.
Again, just put the tip on the concrete and it melts it's way through it. We found that taking off lots of smaller pieces works faster and easier then big pieces, but either way, it's amazing. Smaller pieces are in the size of softballs.
I've only used it on this one job and those two chores, so I can't attest to how long it will hold up or last, but from thest experiences, I can highly recomend this tool to anybody looking for a Rotary Hammer.
I have one other Hitachi tool, it's a small 2.5 air compressor. It's small enough to carry around to job sites, powerful enough to run to framing guns and fairly inexpensive at $180. It's oil lubricated and came with it's own synthetic oil. It's loud, which I don't care for, but otherwise, it's a good tool.
I'll buy other Hitachi tools now that I've had good experiences with these two.
Hope this helps somebody,
Eddie
