On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 07:37:00 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Built
] wrote:

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

and bought a cheap SDS drill.
This weekend, he showed me the stiches in his chin, from the
moment he discovered it didn't have a safety clutch in it
(which my Metabo certainly does have). Fortunately I believe
no serious damage done.

Stitches in his *chin*? How...? No, I don't really want to know...
I hope he doesn't have any other power tools, or a cooker, or
a powered lawnmower, or drive a car, or..... the only drill I've
had with a clutch in it is a De Walt cordless drill, which can
drive in screws too.

There's no substitute for experience, unless it is a course
in how to use hand tools safely, followed by experience. I'm
surprised that more practical courses aren't offered more
widely, and that otherwise sane people (sans experience) go
out and buy tools that can easily do serious harm. What do
I know, though - "I always wanted to be a lion tamer". No
wonder DIY is a major cause of accidents in the home!


I have to put my hand up to being guilty of thoughtless
stupidity with regard to a similar Screwfix SDS drill some time
back...

I use power tools day in, day out, as I have for the past
twenty-odd years at work. I have possessed for a good deal of this
time a "lightweight" Hitachi SDS drill ( with no roto-stop ) - which
has a built-in clutch. This operates at a point before the drill
wrecks itself, or me.

My shiny new 4KG (I think!) roto-stop SDS arrived from Screwfix
whilst I was working in a gutted old stone house. The stone was very
soft, and I didn't have any suitable chisels, so I popped in a 16mm
drill bit, turned the rotation off, applied drill to stone, and hit
the "go" button. The drill bit disappeared a couple of inches into the
stone very rapidly, so I stopped the drill, engaged the rotary
function on the drill, and without a care squeezed the switch.

It was fortunate that I had a good grip on the drill, as I
rapidly found out two things - the drill bit was firmly embedded into
the stone - no real surprise - and the drill didn't come with a clutch
- very much a surprise. This latter point meant that I spent a couple
of days mooching about gently wiggling my wrists. I still cannot
believe that these drills that are low geared, thus high on torque,
are sold bereft of a safety clutch, which is standard on non-budget
versions of the same type of drill.

They should at the very least have a warning about the lack of a
clutch, and the safety implications thereof, in bold typeface on the
packaging and instructions. I anticipate some grief regarding the
stupidity of my actions, some of which I bestowed upon myself at the
time, and if the SDS drill was new on the market, then again, my fault
entirely. But as the drill in question followed many others to the
market, if it had a serious safety flaw - which it does - it was
irresponsible not to make the point clear. I think that some of the
blurb relating to the original drill that I purchased from screwfix
intimated that it had a clutch...

Enough of my rambling.....

--
Regards,

Will.