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by Peter Brett - June 2003
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Neat, Compact, Versatile and made by Hitachi
One should also not forget that it is made by Hitachi - a company whose power tools, in my experience, have a very strong and loyal following amongst trades-people. Ask them why and they will tell you things like “reliable, no-nonsense, hardworking, lasts forever”. These are obviously exactly the right things to make Hitachi pleased, but also help retailers make up their minds what quality tools to stock.
Weighing in at just 6.5 Kgs, the Hitachi DH 40MR is not the heaviest nor the lightest SDS-Max rotary hammer around. But it is well specified. Having 950 watts of power it is powerful enough, I found, to do what it is specified to do without getting dramatic or making funny noises. The cast motor housing and chuck/gear assembly are beautifully made and well finished. No shortcuts here. The handle, dials and switches are formed in robust ABS with a nice green grippy back to the main handle. No trouble reaching the trigger with even a large gloved hand either - it’s a real two finger size. What might be difficult to alter with a gloved hand is the orange dial wheel to set the rotation speed under the main handle. To choose rotation and hammering or just rotation, a large rotating lever on the left side of the body is excellently placed, easy to move (even with a gloved hand) and very positive in operation. And the front handle is one of those “just in the right place” sorts of handle that make handling a 6.5 Kg SDS hammer easier rather than a chore. It is large, strong, softly faced with a grippy rubber and easy to adjust to any position for a left or right hander with a few twists of the handle. Also, it doesn’t move when the going gets tough if it is tightened up properly. The handle also holds the depth gauge rod, a simple but effective solution.
I must admit to having a lot of rather destructive fun using the Hitachi DH 40MR. It so happened that there was a concrete path that a neighbour wished to break up as he is going for a designer solution for his walkways. It varied between 50 to 60 mm thick but it became clear quite early on that the Hitachi would make short work of this. Once the initial breakthrough was made and cleared, all I had to do was move back about 50 mm each time and hammer through another piece of the slab. This generally meant a crack spreading through the slab until it conveniently broke off. Choosing the right SDS bit is crucial here because it can save a lot of work. I used a standard chisel shaped bit about 25mm wide.
Drilling holes in concrete and masonry is, frankly, a doddle. The spec says the DH 40MR will drill up to 40mm, but I only needed holes of 25mm, which I achieved with remarkable ease. I did not try anything bigger, not only because bigger SDS bits are quite pricey, but I did not have the need to drill anything bigger just now. The tool gave me every reason to believe that bigger holes than 25mm will be just as possible, but may take a bit more care and time.
One of my team of builders who I run tools past now and again to get their views was very impressed with the Hitachi’s performance. He is used to using a much larger machine that has more capacity, but is not nearly as easy to hold and use in areas where space is limited, or where the weight of the tool needs to be supported by the user
This machine can also be used, with the addition of the necessary extra bits, for bolt placing with a chemical anchor, core drilling, asphalt cutting, scooping, surface roughing, tamping and ramming. I look forward to testing it out on these jobs in a future review.
We now come to the issue that I have more discussions about with builders and trades-people than any other. There is the “Why bother to buy expensive tools because they are only going to get nicked” camp, the “ I always buy the best I can afford because they always produce the goods for me” camp and the “ Cheap tools are a much better idea - they are easy to replace, you can charge them to a job and they are nearly as good as the expensive tools” camp.
The Hitachi DH 40MR Rotary hammer clearly falls into the “expensive tools” bracket according to two of the camps above. But for me the following is the decider. I showed it to two plumbers who were having to drill lots of holes in a concrete ceiling for some suspended industrial pipework. Their boss had left them with a cheap SDS hammer / drill which was doing an adequate job. Opening the case of the Hitachi was enough to make their eyes light up and two holes drilled was enough for a request from them for me to “leave it with them for a while”. I had to refuse because I needed it elsewhere, but the fact is that in an ideal world we would all like tools that are pleasant and easy to use rather than ones whose performance is compromised by price and manufacturing limits. Good tools don’t come cheap, but in the quality and value for money stakes I reckon its hard to beat Hitachi.
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