Tool Talk

[Pete M]

just bought a new junkyarding ratchet from HF.  1/4" on one end, 3/8" on the other.  it's a two-fer   no idea how tough it is yet, but I'm generally not all that hard on ratchets since I use little breaker bars or the 1/2" ratchet whenever possible.

 

 

[bruce9]

Ive got one and it has held up to my normal use/abuse for several years. I just don't over torque it

 

[1989commanche]

One of each 3/8 10mm socket. Shallow deep swivel and impact. 

[Pete M]

priceless  

[1989commanche]

33 minutes ago, Pete M said:

priceless  

My wallet felt it. 

[derf]

Bets on how long until you lose one?

[Pete M]

guess I should add this in here.  I fabbed a double tire setup for the wheelbarrow.    no more tipping over while I'm loading wood because the ground isn't level.  

 

 

 

[Dammerung]

After getting my D44 and my 30, I’ve come to realize an air impact gun is a little difficult to lug around. Now I’m looking at some electrical ones and I want to know what your guy’s personal choices are. What have you guys had luck with?


1988 Jeep Comanche Pioneer
4.0 Liter w/ AW4 2WD

[MontanaManche]

2 hours ago, Dammerung said:

After getting my D44 and my 30, I’ve come to realize an air impact gun is a little difficult to lug around. Now I’m looking at some electrical ones and I want to know what your guy’s personal choices are. What have you guys had luck with?


1988 Jeep Comanche Pioneer
4.0 Liter w/ AW4 2WD

I use an 18v Milwaukee one. Definitely a more expensive option, I think my dad and I bought it for around 400. But with that price comes quality and power, I've never had a bolt I couldn't break loose and neither my dad or I never had a Milwaukee tool fail yet other than one drill that had a bad clutch which Milwaukee rebuilt for free. If your already invested in a certain cordless battery system I would stick to that though.

[gogmorgo]

We also have the M18 Milwaukee at work. Our tools get used and abused pretty heavily and usually take the beating and come back asking for more, although we have cooked a few of the tools. Burnt out a couple drills, and broke an anvil on one of the 1/2” impacts, but again this stuff gets used. If you do go this route don’t even bother with the 3amp-hour batteries. They’re fine for light tasks but overheat if you throw a big load on them. The grinder will also overheat the 5.0 batteries, but that’s irrelevant. Also worth watching out for, there’s a couple levels of impact, and the lighter ones probably aren’t going to be competitive with your air tools. 

I looked into getting into a cordless system pretty extensively last fall and ultimately decided it wasn’t going to be worth the money for me at the time, just for occasional home use. I like the Hilti battery system, but their 3/4” impact isn’t even competitive with the Milwaukee 1/2” at least on paper (1400ft-lbs for the M18 vs like, 650 for the 3/4” Hilti) so it doesn’t really make sense to get into for the cordless impact wrenches, which is mostly what I’d be using as well.

I know the Milwaukee because I use it at work, so I think that’s where I’d go to get into a battery system unless Hilti steps up their impact game, but if I already had Dewalt or Makita or something else at home I’d be more than happy to add an impact to that range. Even lesser brands like Ryobi or even Harbor Freight would be okay for occasional use. Dewalt and Milwaukee are definitely the top dogs in the impact wrench game, but bare tools are cheaper than batteries, so unless you’re looking into moving into a new system I don’t see the point in doing so if you’ve already got one. 
Something I did see that I liked was that Dewalt has adapters to use newer battery types in older tools, which is cool. I wouldn’t want to have to replace all my tools in 10 years just because the batteries all quit and I can’t replace them anymore. No guarantees they’ll still be doing that down the road but you never know. Backwards compatibility beats the pants off planned obsolescence.

[derf]

I ended up getting started with Ryobi batteries so I got their impact gun.  It's fine for basic jobs but it doesn't have the oomph to tackle really serious jobs.  It's good for 99% of what I do.  If something is really stuck I have my oxy-acetylene rig to persuade it.

[gogmorgo]

9 hours ago, derf said:

  It's fine for basic jobs but it doesn't have the oomph to tackle really serious jobs.  It's good for 99% of what I do.

Not necessarily the worst thing in the world. I snapped a 1/2” bolt off with the Milwaukee last week.

[JMO413]

10 hours ago, derf said:

I ended up getting started with Ryobi batteries so I got their impact gun.  It's fine for basic jobs but it doesn't have the oomph to tackle really serious jobs.  It's good for 99% of what I do.  If something is really stuck I have my oxy-acetylene rig to persuade it.

I definitely like my Ryobi

[mjeff87]

All I can say is I bought a Dewalt 18v impact a few years ago along with a couple spare batteries and z charging station.  All was beautiful in my world.  Then they D/C'd the 18v and replaced with the 20v Li/ion system.  It was cost prohibitve for me to keep all my old 18v batteries, so I bought 2 20v ones and the adapter to use them on my impact.  They absolutely suck.  If you take them right off the charger they do indeed have more "umpfh" than the 18v, but they don't last for crap.  And when they die, they just flat out die with no warning unlike the older batteries that would run down, letting you know you probably should put a new battery in.  And they won't hold a charge for more than a week, tops.

 

Bottom line, I'm pissed off at the forced change I had to make, and will probably abandon Dewalt over it.  YMMV.

[cruiser54]

My new Milwaukee under hood light.

 

 

[gogmorgo]

1 hour ago, mjeff87 said:

I bought 2 20v ones and the adapter to use them on my impact.  They absolutely suck.  If you take them right off the charger they do indeed have more "umpfh" than the 18v, but they don't last for crap.  And when they die, they just flat out die with no warning unlike the older batteries that would run down, letting you know you probably should put a new battery in.  And they won't hold a charge for more than a week, tops.

Were they similar amp-hour batteries to the 18V? With the Milwaukee M18 batteries there’s a very noticeable difference between the 3 and 5Ah batteries. The 3’s really don’t last, to the point I don’t even bother with them unless it was in the tool I picked up, or I only had to drill like, two holes or something. They also seem to put out more current, like the drill seems a bit torquier with the 5 in it than the 3.

They also don’t give much warning before quitting, like you might notice like 5-10 seconds of slower drilling and then that’s it. I think that’s just a function of a lithium battery. They’re a lot more finicky about charging and minimum voltages than for example a ni-cad, so once they hit a certain voltage threshold, they just quit, not like a ni-cad that will let you run most of the way down to no charge at all. The Makita batteries I’ve used were the same. We had a cordless circ saw we had to quit using because it would stop so quit it would transfer all the inertia from the blade into the tool body and rip it right out of your hands.

 

I’m not trying to defend Dewalt here or anything. I don’t have a ton of experience with them. I’m just thinking some of what you’re complaining about might be consistant across any tool company.

I’m also a bit curious about the adapter now. I assumed it would step the voltage down with fancy electronics, but if it’s just a resistor pack then yeah it’ll be burning power way faster than you’d want.

[scaleless]

Ryobi is poop.  All my tools are Milwaukee... ALL of them.  The big chonker 1/2" impact with a high output battery will snap the head off anything. 

 

I use their cheap(er) 12v impact that I got for Christmas 4 years ago every day for work cranking down on bolts all day and while the trigger has gotten loose, it's still going strong.

[peterr991]

On 7/24/2019 at 3:00 PM, Jeep Driver said:

I don't expect you to sit through a 20 minutes of me running my mouth but you can if you want. 

 

I just wanted to introduce some new tools I bought. And I'm curious was to what others are using and what you've collected over the years. 

 

http://i.imgur.com/YWhPiXm.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/VJjBj6s.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/LinugIZ.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/9Oru51K.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/0iVeiqB.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/efbDGWm.jpg

 

nice. where did you buy them and how much did they cost?

 

[PCO6]

11 hours ago, cruiser54 said:

My new Milwaukee under hood light.

 

 

 

I bought one recently too (Mastercraft though).   They're great.   I don't know what took me so long!

 

[cruiser54]

We're both slow learners.....  LOL

[PCO6]

We just finally "saw the light".   

[schardein]

On 4/15/2021 at 10:13 PM, Pete M said:

just bought a new junkyarding ratchet from HF.  1/4" on one end, 3/8" on the other.  it's a two-fer   no idea how tough it is yet, but I'm generally not all that hard on ratchets since I use little breaker bars or the 1/2" ratchet whenever possible.

 

 

Pete, I bought that double ratchet years ago to put in my junkyard backpack.  It was a space/weight saving effort.  It didn't last 3 months of occasional weekend junkyard trips.  When I went in to exchange it, they were out.  I bit the bullet and picked up this Pittsburgh 1/4" swivel ratchet.  Now, this thing is money well spent.  I have Snap-On, Craftsman full polished, and Proto 1/4 ratchets, and the Pittsburgh is my favorite.  I carried it for years until I left it at the Pick-n-Pull in St Louis under the hood of a Suburban.  Hope someone found it.  I went and bought another one.

[Pete M]

It's now on the list!

[cruiser54]

2 hours ago, PCO6 said:

We just finally "saw the light".   

true!! LOL

[gogmorgo]

4 hours ago, schardein said:

When I went in to exchange it, they were out.  I bit the bullet and picked up this Pittsburgh 1/4" swivel ratchet.  Now, this thing is money well spent.  I have Snap-On, Craftsman full polished, and Proto 1/4 ratchets, and the Pittsburgh is my favorite.  I carried it for years until I left it at the Pick-n-Pull in St Louis under the hood of a Suburban.  Hope someone found it.  I went and bought another one.

I’ve got the Napa version, in 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2”. Snap-on also has their brand name on one that looks identical other than the soft part of the handle and the fact it costs double. I’ve seen a couple other brands as well, it might be a GearWrench product but I’m not sure.

I have managed to kill the 1/4” (and warrantied it), lost teeth off the ratchet when putting far too much torque into it, but I use the 1/2” for almost everything at work and haven’t had an issue with it.