SKIL 20v 4 1/2 inch angle grinder, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Helloooo YouTube. So today I'd like to talk about the SKIL

20 volt brushless angle grinder and we're going to talk about The Good,, The Bad and The Ugly.

So if anybody's a SKIL fan, might want to turn off now because I found some problems...

All right but before I get into that I'd like to talk about angle grinders.

This is a Makita four and a half inch angle grinder I bought

25 years ago when I was doing tile work and I used it every day when I was working as a tile setter

and uh it just keeps working.. And in my experience an angle grinder is the

number..Or was in the top three power tools you need and of course that's just my opinion but..

The Drill / Impact being #1,, A Power Saw of any kind being #2 and number 3.. the Angle Grinder.

And to give you an idea how important the angle grinder is,, uh, you couldn't be a metal

fabricator without angle grinders, it'd be impossible. You would be a Blacksmith then..

Welders, welders use angle grinders all the time, and Tile Setters, believe it or not,

use angle grinders all the time. I use it to cut circles and curves in and notches out of tile,

uh and it was much quicker and gave you more maneuverability than a wet saw.

It worked really well in that area and it just it's got coated with tile dust and it's just

keeps going. I haven't even changed the brushes in it yet and that was 25 years ago and I have

a set of brushes at some point I will change but that gives you an idea how important an

angle grinder is.. and this one turns at 11 000 RPM and cost me about sixty dollars 25 years ago so

that was a real good deal. All right well let's look at this. This is the

Skil cordless 20 volt angle grinder and it is pretty it is solid. It is actually heavier

than this. It is a solid a piece of tool there and that's the good. uh, Comes with the five amp battery

uh and I used it a little bit earlier today, this turns at 8 500 RPMs still slower than the Makita

but it seems to get get the job done perfectly and in fact

I think the lower speed might be an advantage with

with brushes or wire brushes and this doesn't heat the metal quite as fast as the 11 000 RPM

So that's The Good.. The Bad, in my opinion, the bad are these little filters, these little vents

right here. It's a good idea you keep metal filings and pieces of debris out of your motor area here

and if you did tile work with this, these little metal vents,

they would uh clog up really fast you have to pop them off and you would have to clean them quite

often and the bad thing about that is.. is this is something that can get lost really easily, they

just pop right out of there. So it's a good idea but it's maybe not as secure as it could be it

I would rather see them have like a little screw to hold it in place.

Okay well let's talk about The Ugly.

and again this is just my my perspective.. and and that is just this neat, little,,

lever action,, lockdown on the shield there and while that

seems to be great, there's a problem and that is it limits you

to this angle which is about 45 degrees. When I work on tile or anything

I'm holding the grinder and I'm looking down, looking down at what I'm grinding

and I usually hold it about 20 to 30 degrees so now that I'm having to raise that angle up it's

going to create more stress on my wrist and I'll give you a show you an example

uh you can see I hope you can see my arms probably in the way.

You can see

the lower angle on the Makita the way I have it set up this is a much higher angle

and uh it's gonna take some learning some getting used to I would like to see that adjusted so

we could pull all that Shield back just a little more this way um

so I don't know if I can fix that or just learn to work with it but to me that's really bad

because I have to I have to adjust the angle with which I use the grinder as opposed to

you know I had a more straight arm and when I was lifting up I could do it like that

and now I'm I have to be more more in straight but

that's not a big thing for everyone that's just in my opinion something I don't like.

Not going to do any Cuts here on this video but so far that's what I'm finding with this.

To sum up, this is a fully capable angled angle grinder and I was using it earlier today

you don't really notice the uh 1500 or

2000 RPM difference.. you notice it in sound. this is much quieter but uh it cuts just fine

and it's surprisingly, like I said before, it's

it's (chuckles ) a little heavier than the Makita. but um,

so far it's good, I made it about.. earlier I made about four Cuts with

it through quarter inch.. no.. through 1/8th inch steel and I still have four bars. So, so

we'll see what happens with that... and... All right, well that's all I have for today.

So uh in conclusion.. Great angle grinder, not so great design in some areas,

Some areas that could be improved upon.. Good for the price.

and it doesn't really compare to a corded angle grinder. It's just uh something you can carry out

in the field or down at the end of the driveway, or on your truck and you don't have to plug into

anything it's ready to go. Anyway that's it. so in conclusion I like to say... Be Safe this weekend.

Think Ahead.. Be Wise... Try to Avoid Dangerous Situations.. All right, bye bye.