why do cordless drills suck at holding bits?
 

i'm looking for a cordless drill that won't lose hold of the bit when the going gets rough.

i love the convenience of being able to tighted the chuck with the automatic chuck, but more often then not when you are drilling through tough wood or other materials the bit will get stuck and stay still while the chuck strarts drilling. are there any cordless drills that are better at holding bits or that allow you to manually tighten the chuck?

thanks

I have a ryobi 14.4v cordless and I've never had that problem.

None of my DeWalt drills have ever had that problem either...

You could take a grinder and make three flat spots on the bit where you put it in the chuck. Then it will be held from twisting much better by the hand tightened chuck.

I've done this in the past with good success, but only works on med - large bits. Would'nt try it on anything less than 1/8" for sure.

Ok, you probably know about this but what the heck. Most cordless drills are not meant to be tightened by holding the chuck and running the drill. The ones that are have one large surface on the outside of the chuck for you to grip.

OTH, most have one large grip, and a second smaller "ring" below it that doesn't really look like it's meant for much. On these, you must hold that smaller ring while twisting the large one tight. This is the only way to really get it tight, and supposedly you stress out the drill by doing it by running the drill (which I do anyway, if the torque load won't be high).

Well, I work for Ryobi and I can honestly say it depends on the drill. If you buy a good one, it shouldn't do this. But, on our cheaper models I have experienced the same thing. :(

So I guess the bottom line is, you get what you pay for.

I have had two different Makita's never had the problem.

my craftsman works good. At work we use makitas, damn those things are good. and they take a good beating too.

Take a look at one of DeWalts XRP drills. It locks down better than any cordless I've ever owned. Highly recommend.

DeWalt is where it's at. Throw your other drill away and buy a nice DeWalt.

I'm with mtsgsd

My Makita - if I really want to lock it in, use two hands on the rubber and plastic ring and no slippy. Also, is it possible that dtheriault's problem is that his clutch isn't set right and that IT is spinning? Set the clutch to the drill symbol. I want to find one like my old Milwalkee where you can put your hand behind the drill axis, instead of under like the new Dewalts. THe new design is not as ergonomic and your wrist can get tired using it a lot for assembly, etc.

DeWalt 14.4 Volt with a hand tightened chuck and I've never had a problem with bit slippage.

i have a firestorm which is a "cheap drill" i guess i need to go out and buy a 200$ drill. oh well. it's one tool that i always use and i hate when it doesn't work well.

thanks for the advice.

Well I have one of the two piece chucks, and I have to say that it doesn't slip most of the time, but will now and then. In fact, the main times it does happen is when I'm driving a lot of screws using the slip clutch. The vibration seems to loosen it unless I tighten it down the correct way.

The only reason I even know there's two different kinds is from reading a cordless drill line up in a tool magazine. According to them, you eventually will damage the drill tightening a two-piece with the motor, but I've had mine a long time.

I always tighten the chuck on my drills (2- 18volt DeWalt's) using then motor and I've never had any problems. Try using a spade bit with an octogonal head.

most of the cordless drills now come with "keyless" chucks and there is a huge quality difference in the chuck depending upon the drill. I have two, a DeWalt and a knock off brand, never had the problem with the DeWalt but the knock off will tend to loosen and when using it I am often 'retightening' the bit.

thanks everyone. i went out and bought a dewalt. it was 70$ more than my last drill and worth every penny.

great choice on the DEWALT, you'll never be disappointed. :)

hand tighten the thing, and you ought to be fine.

It's amazing how bad American companies have gotten any more. Black & Decker and Skil invented most of the stuff that's out today but make such crap it isn't even funny. What happened to those guys. Was it all greed and to sell the cheapest tool for the most money or what!

I find DeWalt drills too heavy. The Makita's I own are lighter and more powerfull. IMHO.

my dad has a couple of (fairly new) makita cordless drill that have a very neat hand-tightened chuck. They've got some kind of rachet mechanism inside that makes it easy to get the bit nice and tight. Perhaps you could look into retro-fitting your drill with a higher quality chuck from a different company

i just saw an ad from my local hardware store for some drill bits that are made with flat surfaces on the bases, as opposed to round.

Yeah kinda funny how black & decker owns dewalt...but i dewalt is the cadillac of drills

Wow, I didn't know that. I assumed that Dewalt was a company like Milwakee or something. Was their name so tarnished by the crap tools that they had to make up a new company?

Yup they are the same......Once for a company I worked for I repaired grinders...the dewalt and the black and decker ones where exactly the same exactly for the color of the cases...and all parts were interchangeable.

No, DeWalt has been around for a long time. Black and Decker bought them out a while ago. Black and Decker's industrial line used to be the shit, the rest of their stuf was the same as it is now, lower end consumer stuf. When they bought DeWalt they converted their industrial line over to the DeWalt brand, during the transition, you would find many of the Black and Decker Industrial and DeWalt built the same. I havn't seen any of the industrial series around anymore, so I think they totally phased it out, I could be wrong though.


As far as skill goes, their worm drive is still the most widely used professional worm drive saw on the market. It's only because it's the industry standard that it's still around. They got bought out by Bosch, so Bosch makes all of the high end professional tools and Skill is the consumer line of the company now. I noticed that the Bosch saws are improved Mag77s, so who knows, they might eventually take over the market and Skill might even kill theirs.