Expert Power Tool Reviews & Buying Guides for the UK
Ask any tradesperson what separates a clean metal cut from a mangled one, and they won’t mention the saw first — they’ll mention the blade, the speed, and the patience of whoever’s holding the trigger. A cordless jigsaw for metal cutting isn’t magic; it’s a fairly ordinary reciprocating tool asked to do a genuinely tricky … Read more
Sawdust doesn’t lie. Cut a tight curve with the wrong tool and you’ll know within seconds — the blade wanders, the edge chars, and what should have been a smooth arc looks like it was gnawed by something with poor table manners. A pendulum jigsaw for curved cuts solves this problem in a way a … Read more
Here’s a confession every toolshed owner eventually makes: you don’t actually need a jigsaw until the exact moment you desperately do. A worktop needs a sink cutout, a stair tread has warped, or you’ve just measured a curved shelf bracket that no circular saw on earth is going to manage. That’s the itch this best … Read more
Somewhere between the fifth trip back to the shed for an extension lead and the moment you trip over it mid-cut, most people decide it’s time to go cordless. A cordless circular saw for decking is exactly what it sounds like — a battery-powered saw built to slice through deck boards, joists and treated timber … Read more
There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes from dragging an extension lead across a freshly cut sheet of birch ply, watching it snag on a clamp at exactly the wrong moment. A cordless track saw solves that problem outright, and it does a lot more besides. What is a cordless track saw? It’s a … Read more
An 18V circular saw for joiners is a battery-powered handheld saw, typically fitted with a 165mm blade, designed to make fast, accurate crosscuts and rip cuts in timber and sheet material without a trailing cable. It’s the tool that decides whether your morning starts with cutting or with untangling extension leads. If you’ve ever watched … Read more
Somewhere in most UK sheds there’s a corded circular saw tangled round a strimmer, an extension lead nobody trusts, and a vague memory of the last time it actually got used. That’s usually the moment people start looking at a cordless circular saw instead — no lead to trip a ladder, no hunting for a … Read more
A cordless SDS drill is a battery-powered rotary hammer that uses the SDS (Slotted Drive Shaft) chuck system to punch, rather than simply spin, its way through masonry, brick and concrete — trading a mains lead for a slide-in battery pack while keeping the hammering action that ordinary drills can’t manage. If you’ve ever tried … Read more
Right, let’s get one thing out of the way first: if you’ve ever tried to break a slab with a bog-standard combi drill, you’ll know the feeling of watching a £60 tool wave the white flag against thirty-year-old concrete. That’s the gap an SDS max drill exists to fill. It’s the tool site foremen reach … Read more
A SDS plus drill is the tool that turns “I’ll get round to it” into “done before lunch.” If you’ve ever wrestled a cheap combi drill into a brick wall and watched the bit smoke, spin uselessly, then die, you already know why this category exists. An SDS plus drill uses a spring-loaded, tool-free chuck … Read more