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The clutch is a wrist saver, the bits are harder to find than SDS Max and the price is right. I bought this rotary hammer for drilling in grout holes for rebar and anchor bolts and some other misc. No tool is a good deal if it shuts your job down. But the tool went down in a matter of hours, and given Hitachi's impossible to locate parts, I'm shopping for a SDS Max Hilti or Bosch. holes in concrete. It is a very good tool for someone who has a lot of varied tasks but dosen't work the tool everyday.
I haven't tried to use it as a jack-hammer yet, so I cannot confirm or refute toolpig's evaluation of when it's used as such. My local Home Depot has a few, but mail-ordering is usually necessary to find a specific size. The spline-shaft bits aren't always easy to find.
I use it for breaking up granite boulders by drilling a line of holes and splitting the rock with stonemasons' 'feathers and pins'. . I bought mine a few months ago, and I love it.
I've not had any problems with it, and it does as good a job as my friend's Hilti which cost him more than twice as much. In any case, I think I got good value on this tool. The thing weighs quite a bit so it's not the best for small holes in masonry walls.
It seems to work best when held vertically or close to it.
It is a tighter mechanism which transfers more of the hammering power to the bit , resulting in faster drilling performance. I also used it for chipping which is hard on roto hammers. I bought mine used and had it for five years before replacing it recently. So when you do use them for breaking , they have to run a lot longer than a demolition hammer would.
Like most Hitachi tools , this is very well engineered. If you have a lot of spline bits , this would be a good tool to buy. I went to SDS max which is currently replacing spline drive in the large rotary hammer market. It stands up to all kinds of abuse.
It has pretty good power for drilling though. If you are starting from scratch , I would recommend the SDS max hammers from Hilti , Bosch or milwaukee Mine ran for years drilling all sizes of holes in old hard concrete. They don't have a lot of power for breaking concrete as this is not their intended primary use.
after a year of use and abuse my hitachi is still going strong.it drills fast and easy and in hammer mode drives ground rods and does light demolition effortlessly.i prefer the spline shank drills and accesories over the little sds shank bits but i do use an adaptor for the slightly cheaper sds or taper shanks in the smaller sizes.industrial machinery installation is tuff on tools but the hitachi DH38YE not only came through with flying colors but outlasted a much more expensive brand.
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