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Hello there are welcome to the second of The Mad Carpenter’s tool reviews. Today we have a look at the power drill, one of the corner stones of the woodworking world. You need a drill these days; either for driving screws, drilling pilot holes or drilling… larger holes. It seems really limited, but trust me, it gets you out of a lot of work at times.

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I splashed out 30 euros for this drill, which isn’t a lot to some, but I’m on a very fixed budget. There was one for half the price of this one, but it didn’t include a carry case, and I thought I’d splash out a bit.

More pictures and reviewing after the jump.

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The drill boxed with components. If you want the technical specs for the drill go to the Argos page linked at the end of the post. I’m here to tell you how it works in the real world.

The accessories that came with the drill were rather limited, but then again, what do you expect for 30 euros? 3 wood bits, 3 metal bits and 3 masonry bits. I tried each of the bits out, by just sort of haphazardly drilled holes in some bits of wood, a bit of metal and half a breeze block. It works well while drilling all three. It’s solid, it’s cheap, and it’s fairly reliable. There is a little locking button on the handle to lock the speed when you’re drilling so you don’t have to squeeze the trigger the whole time: A bit handy for masonry drilling.

Now on to the down sides.

On my particular drill the spindle is a little tiny bit unbalanced so the tip of your drill bit tends to wander a little bit. I’m not doing wildly accurate work so it suits my purposes fine. If I was doing amazingly accurate work I’d splash out the money to buy a drill press.

The screwdriver bits provided are of very low quality and I stripped one of them on its very first outing. So I’d suggest buying your own driver bits. The speed is also quite hard to control, or maybe it was just the way I was holding it… but it means it’s difficult to control the pace of screw driving, which probably led to stripping the head of the screwdriver bit.

So let’s see… score out of ten… people love those, it’s an quick measure of quality.

7 out of 10. Weighing up the shortcomings, the advantages, the versatility, the low quality… and price wins. It’s cheap, very cheap, and you don’t have to recharge it. Though you probably will need an extension cable.

As a first drill it’s a very good idea, but just make sure that this is a stepping stone if you’re hoping to continue woodworking as a serious hobby.

Argos page here

Happy mad carpentry.