12 Volt corded drill

[hookhill]

Well been thinking about sugaring alot lately! We just got permission for another 500 taps and now its time to come up with something to drill all those holes. In the past we used a 14 volt Makita and just kept recharging the batteries. It worked ok for 325 taps but time to take it up a notch. Looking around the shop I noticed we had several 12V cordless drills with bad batteries and a few car batteries. There has got to be a way to just connect the drill to a car battery and pack the battery through the woods. Did a web search and of course there are other people who have implemented this idea already. Here is the link:

http://www.stu-offroad.com/misc/12Vdrill-1.htm

So what we plan on doing is hook the drill to the small car battery via a cord and some clips and mount the battery on a old child backpack. Will let you know how it goes.

Jim

[maplwrks]

Jim,
Mike Bromley was doing that 4years ago and it worked real well. He was selling them in the Addison County area. He lives in the Bristol area, give him a call, he might be able to give you a few pointers.

[maplehound]

The small hot start batteries used to jump start a car or any 12 volt tractor also comes with a ciggaret lighter plug. It may be lighter thatn most 12 volt batteries, is recahgeable and varie easy to use. I might even try this myself.

[brookledge]

I did that many years ago with a drill that was originally a 12 volt drill with a cord but I got sick of lugging the weight of the 12 volt car battery.
No doubt about it though that it will last along time especially if you get a deep cycle battery.
The new type of batteries out are lithium-ion and are suppose to last 2-3 times longer than ni-cad. However I don't have one to back that up.
Keith

[NH Maplemaker]

If you were using any type of wet cell battery, I would be concerned about acid spill or evan vapor :!: Vapor from a wet cell will eat your clothes or evan irritate your skin or eyes! I think Ron (maplehound) is right :idea: The car start dry cells would work great :lol: Jim L.

[Valley View Sugarhouse]

Is all the weight and agrivation of the 12 vold drill worth it??? Bascoms has gas tappers in price range from $75 to $200 and the $75 one they have had for a while so i bet you could get it cheaper then that... To me The couple hundread dollars (max) you would spend on a gas tapper out weighs the 12 volt all day long... I tapped with a 18 volt Dewalt once I think I was averaging about 40 taps per hour, with one helper, due to the drilling speed.. With my Tanaka we can average near 100 an hour.. I pull the plugs on my taps the weekend before I tapp and the 1 man drills and 1 man hammers the taps in the hole, about 30 seconds each including walk time in between..

[Fred Henderson]

Take a look on ebay for one. Might get one with reverse to boot. :D

[maplehound]

seems to me that gas tappers would be heavy and noisy. ( never used one myself) I do think that 18 volt is the way to go but the batteries on these cordless drills are expensive and sometimes it is better to buy new drill than a replacement batterie. If you can convert one to a car stat dry cell it could save you money and time.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I have an 18 volt Hitachi and I can get 140 to 150 taps per battery and with 3 batteries, that is going to be close to a full day for one person anyways. The drill is very compact and light and has a 5 year warranty. As steep as most of the land is where my trees are, I don't need extra weight shifting as it is hard enough just to stand up. :)

The amount of taps per battery is with one of the new high speed $ 20 cordless bits from Bascoms. :)

[hookhill]

Yeah I thought about getting a gas tapper. Borrowed my neighbors once and it worked pretty good. It didnt work that much faster than a cordless though and is noisier. A gas tapper would be nice but I got the spare parts around for a cordless running off a car battery.

[Brian]

I took a booster pack that's used to jump start a car and took a cheap house hold extention cord and pluged the male end into the dewalt 12 volt drill then put some cardboard inside where the battery goes to hold in the cord along with some black tape. I then cut the other end off and stripped the wires back and stuck one wire in the pos. clamp and the other one in the neg. clamp. I used an ohm meter on a battery to find pos. and neg. of the drill. Then I put it in a backpack and carry it. This will do atleast 300 5/16 taps. It has not gone dead on me yet. I charge it at night before the next day. I can't take credit for the booster pack idea because a guy at a farm show did this and took an old battery and took the insides out and ran a cord from the booster pack into the battery so he could switch back and forth to his regular batteries.

[VA maple guy]

If you decide to go with a new drill and weight is a concern, get one with
a lithium-ion battery. I saw Dewalts new 36 volt lithium-ion battery today. It weighs about 1/3 to 1/2 less than my Dewalt 18 volt battery.
Gerry

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Those drills with the lithium batteries also have about double the price tag. The small compact Hitatchi drill my wife bought me is light and was only $ 99 with a 5 year warranty and Hitatchi stuff is very high quality, comparable to dewalt.

[Rocky Mountain Maples]

Some of the guys here in New Brunswick swear by the 24 volt BOSCH. They are tapping the 5/16. I know they can be costly but when you are tapping around 40,000 or 80,000 taps you need someting that works. We have an 18 volt BOSCH and it works ok on the 5/16 taps but we still have some 7/16 and the gas tapper is still better.

Dave

[ibby458]

I'm pretty happy with my Craftsman 19.2 volt drill, but I'm toying with the idea of converting my old Makita 12 volt into a corded drill. I'd hollow out one of the old dead batteries, solder on the wires to the terminals and fill the body with silicone or body fill.

If I put an extra box on my 4 wheeler to hold a battery, I could keep it charged by the power port. A trouble light cord reel could be revamped to make a 50' retractable extension cord. I'm pretty confident that I could drive to within 50' of any tree I wanted to tap.

Then again - by sugaring, I'll have 5 batteries for my drill, and I think that'll be all I can handle in one day.

[ennismaple]

I wouldn't consider doing our 4000 taps with anything but our Tanaka gas powered drills. It can be a bit noisy but that's easily fixed with compression type ear plugs.

A buddy of mine and I tapped one bush of ours that has 550 - 5/16 taps in a little over 2 hours one day! I worked it out to one tap every 14 seconds - I'd like to see a battery drill keep up with that.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Ennis,

I had a Tanaka one year and it took about 2 seconds to drill a hole. If I would have been a two man tapping operation instead of one, I wouldn't have gotten rid of it as it was awesome. :)

[Fred Henderson]

I bought new, a Tanaka and love it. I can punch holes all day or until the cows come home. I mix stable with the gas for it and have never had a problem from one year to the next. I also ues it when building pole barns. I only build small ones.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Here's the Hitachi drill I have on ebay. It still shows $ 149 on Lowes.com but was $ 99 in the local store last fall when my wife bought it for me for Christmas. The light that comes with it is AWESOME and it runs about 2 hours on a single charge and puts out tons of light.

Sure is a steal at this price:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Hitachi-18-Volt-Cordless-Tool-Kit-1-2-Drill-Light_W0QQitemZ150065755776QQihZ005QQcategoryZ7130 2QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[maplehound]

Brandon,
It is a steal till you figure in the shipping. Then you might as well buy it locally at the sale price.
Ron

[Fred Henderson]

I didn't think that 18 bucks for S&H was bad.

[maplehound]

The drill is $80 plus shipping That brings it to $98. If You can buy it for $99 at a local store on sale, why buy it from someone over the internet. I love to buy good deals on E-bay but if I can buy it at a local store it is worth some just to deal with a person directly. To me any how.

[Fred Henderson]

In the area where I live we don't have many stores like that. Any tool (cordless or corded) that I buy around here I end up paying a preiumn price for it. I love the area but some thing suck big time. Medical is one of them.

[tyrod2]

This worked for me. I took my 12 vt. Dewalt drill and took a old battery that would not hold a charge and took it apart wired in a 10ft old sweeper cord in the battery then I pluged it into my 12vt. ATV .When my drill battery went dead I would put in the battery with the cord in it and plug it into my ATV and finish tappen my trees. 150 taps Workes great.

[220 maple]

I used Ivan Puffenbargers gas tapper at the Highland Festival after I walked into his woods and found five spiles not drilled by his tapping crew, I agree they work real well however in my sugar bush the hills and the mountain sides are to steep, sometimes I hang on with one arm and reach around the tree to tap the other side. Impossible to tap with a gas powered tapper. Also I don't run the battery down very fast because I only drill one inch deep. If I'm tapping a frozen tree the battery won't last as long. Also using 19/64 bit, which helps. I start with two batteries and when they go dead back I go back to camp and get a new one that is recharing.
Mark 220 Maple
Only Two Seasons!
Maple Season, an getting ready for Maple Season

[maple flats]

It just seems to me that you get so much more portability with a cordless. Have 2 batteries and if you need more then rig a recharge system for one as it dies while you use thew other. I have tapped with DeWalt 18v and Ryobe 18V, liked Dewalt better, More holes/charge but both worked geal good. Keep the bit sharp, have spares if needed for sharp bits and you should be fine. I can carry my drill, spare battery, spare bits and all of my tapping supplies at the same time, no winding or rethreading a cord back thru the trees to reposition. Use tractor or ATV to re charge battery if needed on spare.