Mostly festool with the occasional bosch blue in between. Was mostly bosch blue beforehand. I have no access to milwaukee and makita looks weird. Is ryobi bosch green/black and decker ish quality?
Contractor here. DeWalt 20v is my main cordless brand. I’ve beat the shit out of them for years. Never have given me problems, plus I’ve moved over my lawn care tools to the 20v offerings because I’ve got more batteries than I know what to do with . I migrated over from the 18v post battery lineup, which was disappointing that DeWalt didn’t support their 18v line anymore. DeWalt 12v line is a major letdown; no real tools outside of a couple of drill/driver atomics. I do have a couple of 60v DeWalt tools, but we’ll see if DeWalt continues to support that class.
I did buy into the Milwaukee 12v setup, because sometimes I only need a light duty drill/impact and their 12v line has a lot of nice options for lighter duty cordless tools.
Corded, I have no brand loyalty and buy the best tool for the money (no festool because I don’t have a money tree in my backyard). Bosch, Makita, DeWalt, Milwaukee, etc… I do a little bit of research and buy the best rated tool. I never buy anything that has moving parts from harbor freight. Anything I do buy there I consider a ‘disposable’ tool and can’t depend on it to do it’s job.
My tools make me money, and I try to treat them well, so when I need them I can count on them to work.
I’m on the yellow ray-gun stuff too, I’ve only ever managed to burn a drill armature out (but then I was using a 20mm carbide hole saw on 10mm steel plate so it’s my own fault), found a replacement armature for £26 and it was easy to fit.
I also have the 9Ah monster dewalt battery and their usb topper, absolute life saver if you’re on a job site, or going camping.
I heard they’ve released an even bigger one which I’m yet to look at, and they have a power station thing that looks cool as hell.
Same to almost all of this. My 20v dewalt line has heald up quite well with some pretty heavy usage.
Air tools have been Bostich or porter cable though truth be told I’ve had issue with porter cable. My new framing gun is an off brand Fram Amazon. It was on Hella sale and I needed one quick. It replaced a porter cable and has surprisingly held up really well so far.
I also have a light line but unlike yours I’m in the Makita 12v camp. Have a of their lighter smaller 12v tools and love them. Truthfully I’d be tempted to go all Makita if I wasn’t so heavily invested in dewalt but I don’t really have any dewalt complaints.
Ryobi. I have a bunch of 18v tools and a 40v lawn mower and they’ve all been great. I could afford better I suppose but so far I haven’t had any reason to switch.
I mostly do fix ups around the house, and I make furniture in my spare time. For Power Tools I use Metabo and have for the past 5 years including some of the old Hitachi stuff. My three of my old Hitachi batteries failed and Metabo HPT replaced them no questions asked not even a receipt.
As for woodworking equipment I stick to Delta, and Grizzly. Though I did pick up a helical head Wen planer after chasing down multiple reviews. 10/10 that thing just works.
My dad bought me a Kobalt Power drill that was on sale with a battery over a decade ago, and since I already had the battery I just kept buying Kobalt. Their power tools are solid but I’ve definitely busted a few bits
I picked up that same Ryobi starter kit when I bought my house. I know they aren’t the top of the line, but it’s served me well for light duty household projects.
RYOBI: Recommend You Other Brands Instead (especially applies their gas stuff which has high failure rates, the cordless handhelds are decent for household and even light commercial use though)
Recently inherited my dad’s collection. It’s a mix of ryobi, rigid, Milwaukee, and dewalt (along with a few miscellaneous brands I don’t remember). The Milwaukee tool cabinet and work bench are probably my favourite pieces (followed closely by the Ridgid radial arm saw)
Hitachi/Makita/Metabo (Metabo is Hitachi) Some bosch sometimes. I think the saw stop is nice for table saws after using it in a hackerspace, saw it save enough people from losing fingers it seems like a good idea. For woodworking and gardening I mostly use cheap (but not knockoffs from amazon) japanese tools, as long as you clean the blades and keep them sharp they are a really good value.
Thought I’d be alone to admitting using Hitachi/Metabo HPT. They kinda suck but get light duty stuff done and they don’t cost much, especially if you buy gray market versions.
Metabo HPT is called Hikoki outside of USA afaik. Only seen them at hardware stores but I remember the DV18DD being remarkably quiet for an 18V brushless drill driver, even compared to the competitors’ smaller models. In what way do they suck? At least here they are in the same price range as Makita and Dewalt.
As of now I only have two drills and a measuring tape from them (I know Makita from working dry construction during college). I think it’s really hard to cut off an arm with those :D
