Aldi tools

[David Germany]

Have just purchased a digital caliper gauge from Aldi for £7.99, & a suction mounting table vice for £6.99. Both look to be of reasonable quality, plenty good enough for balsa bashing. I've checked the caliper against my current dial caliper and the readings match up all through the range. Pictures on their website.

Well pleased.

[Devcon1]

They are good. Take a look at Lidl next week at the cordless skill saw , I'll be converting it into a table saw.

[Former Member]

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[Peter Miller]

I have a power plane that cost me £12 many years ago. It has had quite a bit of use and still goes well.

I had the vernier and that works but mine kept flattening the battery if I left it in the tool. Also a soldering pistol and quite a few other tools.

[John Privett]

Posted by Peter Miller on 13/02/2016 09:10:43:

I had the vernier and that works but mine kept flattening the battery if I left it in the tool.

I have a similar one that I bought for a tenner some time ago in a special deal at Maplins. It too tends to drain the batteries in a few weeks even if not switched on. I just get a big card of button cells from Poundland from time to time to feed it and other battery-gobbling items.

[Cuban8]

As an impulse buy, I bought one of Aldi's Dremel type multi tools recently. It ran for at the very most, ten seconds and burned out. No problem, as they refunded my money without question. Just unlucky, I suppose, so will probably take a chance on another when they stock them again.

Edited By Cuban8 on 13/02/2016 09:57:50

[PatMc]

I get the same battery draining problem with an Aldi (or it might be Lidl) vernier. I remove the battery between uses & store it in a round hole that's already cut in the shaped foam in it's case.

[Barrie Dav 2]

I bought a Lidl electronic vernier some 6 years ago and it's still on the original battery, Luck of the draw?

[Don Fry]

My vernier seems OK with batteries, but might I suggest, for the tight amongst us, that e bay does cards of 10 batteries, branded jobbies, for not much cash.

[Robin Colbourne]

I had the same experience as Peter, John and PatMc. Batteries go flat if left in the Aldi digital caliper. Also I would recommend giving the thing a fairly thorough test as soon as you get it. I bought one for a colleague at work and if was completely random on the values it gave. It was as if it wasn't seeing parts of the track from which it derives the reading. I'm pretty sure he got a refund or exchange, but if you want an exchange you need to do it whilst they are on offer, as it could be months before they come round again.

If you or a friend work in an engineering company wiht calibrated equipment, its worth comparing your cheap caliper to one in calibration and noting any differences in readings.

Some people buy these cheap calipers to modify for use as digital readouts on small milling machines, drills and lathes.

My best deal in the past couple of weeks was one of those sets of 276 'Dremel' type tools in Lidl, normally £12.99 marked up at 30% off! Bargain! That should keep me going for a while.

[ASH.]

Thanks Donald,

My Verniers are indispensible and have served me well for years.However, the last battery leaked so now I have to remove it everytime. It was a cheap poundland make. So will go back to expensive quality battery.
Aldi have good value for money tools which last, my Powercraft dremel is still going strong.
And I appreciate guys posting in of lastest deals. We modellers do love to help each other.

[Geoff S]

Those Poundland lithium batteries on multiple cards are very poor. We tried them in my wife's cycle computer but they needed replacing every 2 or 3 weeks whereas the proper, more expensive ones last well over a year.

Geoff

[Bernard Koussoulos]

I bought a batt drill from aldi for £ 20 and its brill .

[Eamonn Fahey]

Posted by John Milne on 13/02/2016 08:33:03:

They are good. Take a look at Lidl next week at the cordless skill saw , I'll be converting it into a table saw.

Hi John, did you get a saw in Lidl? Will you be converting it to a table saw? Can we please see some photo's . Thanks in anticipation,

Eamonn.

[Essjay]

Popped into Aldi yesterday and picked up the small clamp vice for £6.99. Very good for the price. Also picked up an extending window cleaning device for the car for £2.99.

Steve

[Devcon1]

Hi Eamonn,

Not yet, they come out this Thursday. I want one as a light duty cordless but also to be able to work as a hobby table saw. I'll let you know how I get . I know you can get table saws pretty cheap these days but fancied a little project.

But by coincidence I just finished this one lunchtime today.

It's a Parkside which I think is Lidl, 230 jigsaw which I've set into a wooden table.

[Eamonn Fahey]

Thanks John.

That is very neat. The Saws were available on Sunday here in Ireland ​​. I fancy a smallish bench saw for Balsa & Ply and, maybe, ripping my own Spruce spars and stringers.

[John Davies 4]

A couple of observations on Aldi tools , although I can`t comment on them all . The digital caliper battery does tend to flatten quickly , and the contacts need to be kept clean of verdigris to give a good connection , and also helps to stop what i`ve seen described as random readings on this blog , i`ve had similar probs , and I now remove battery after use , and to keep the contacts clean I apply a small amount of vaseline to keep corrosion at bay.

Regarding the cordless drills that retail in Aldi for £19.99 and upwards for different spec drills , they are ok for what you pay , some negatives though ,The rubberised coating has deteriorated into a sticky coating that I have had to eventually wiped away with solvent and perfectly useable without the soft coating . Another downer is the quality of the cells used , not the best , but hey, what do you want for under twenty quid !!! they will still take a charge, but I have found some hold their charge , others don`t , but not out of the question to replace the cells if you`re that way inclined . Also if you need one for a job in particular , as I recently have , now i`ve finished I could just throw the drill away , as it`s paid for itself if you get my drift .

Getting down to the smaller hand tools , some are quite good , such as their hacksaw recently on sale , but their drill bits I don`t think are up to much , and I was disappointed at the quality of the hole punches and wood plug makers to cover screw heads . The Forstner bit set was poorly ground and I felt i`d wasted my money. Their hardpoint tennon saw with plastic mitre box was poor , as it blunted fairly quickly . I also have an air compressor I bought from there which has so far been an excellent buy. A good buy recently was the set of assorted reciprocating saw blades , even after a good amount of use the blade I used was still sharp . In general my opinion of Aldi tools is .........Great for the one off job you know is on your waiting list , or cheap enough to have in your tool box for a job that might pop up , but I don`t think they are " trade" quality rated in any sense of the word , but at their prices you can`t really go wrong .

[Former Member]

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[PatMc]

I need a new cordless drill so pre-ordered this Li-on battery one online from Aldi the other day. It hasn't arrived yet but I noticed they had some in at one of the local stores yesterday.

I think it's a bit sturdier than the Lidl one that they had on sale last week, it is about twice the price but includes a spare battery.

[Martian]

I've got quite a few work zone tools from Aldi basic but good and solid

[John Davies 4]

I have a good few tools from Aldi , can`t beat them for the odd job , nothing worse than not having the tool/s for the job in hand . Some of their stuff is quite good for the money .Their Cordless drills are fine but they are not very good quality cells . I have to literally stop my self from buying stuff from there , and it rankles me when the next issue of the " tool" is cheaper than when I bought mine lol .

What I really want to know is why can`t some tool company such as Axminster , or Aldi themselves for that matter , as most of their tools are made in China anyway , produce a decent miniature table saw with a properly made rise and fall tilt arbour ? There`s only a few on the market , but don`t have a rise and fall tilt arbour . As far as I can find , the only halfway decent one I could find was by Proxon and they want an arm and a leg for it , about £350 ish , which to me is rediculous for a small saw to cut balsa and thin ply and the odd selection of spruce strips. Anyway, I digress, but you get the general idea .

[Former Member]

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[Stephen Jones]

Hi,

Just bought me a Laser level from aldi works great has a spot light and a cross line mode.

Then i thought could i use it to set-up my thrust line on my motor. So i used my cad program to draw a thrust line and make up two targets to aid lining up the laser so all i had to do the was use an old burnt out motor case fix that to the motor mount and line up so that the light would pass through my target holes and clean through my motor so i can fix my motor mount in the correct position.

What do you think ?.

If you zoom in you should be able to see the laser light pass right through on to the depron sheet at the back.

Is the idea sound ?

Steve

[John Robertson 3]

Good stuff these lasers. I have an old Screwfix-sourced wall tile/kitchen fitting laser and use it to verify angles and squareness on my planes when setting them up originally. The tripod was pretty useless and eventually broke, so I sourced an adapter (for only a pound or so from Bangood) which allowed me to fit the laser head on an ordinary photographic tripod.

My tripod is an old, very heavy, Manfrotto professional studio unit (£49 on Ebay) which gives an extremely stable platform from which to work, but is easy to adjust smoothly. In fact, it shows up how flexible wooden floors can be. as the laser lines move with even very slight movements across the surface of the room. I can now be sure my models are set up properly to begin with and it allows me to make a proper assessment of how good, or bad, my post-crash repairs actually are.