Ryobi Tools

In order to build our new deck we needed some new tools. When we had moved into out house I had bought a basic consumer grade drill from Dewalt just to do simple things. I own plenty of tools back in my home country and didn’t want to double up on anything I already owned. Well, that little drill that couldn’t, couldn’t. That cheap Dewalt had a bent shaft or something, so the chuck would wobble and would do a terrible job. Plus I needed a hammer function for concrete anchors. Should I stick with Dewalt since I already had the drill and a battery pack? Or should I consider going to a new system?

To construct the deck I’d need a hammer drill, circular saw and, a multitool at a minimum. I needed to saw through 4×4 timber, and it’s unrealistic to get a handheld saw with a cut depth of 4 inches. So needed a saw with a cut depth of at least half that, so 1.75 inches. Four-by-four lumber is a dimensional 3.5×3.5.

Hammer Drill

My requirements for the drill was a hammer function, and to be brushless. I’ve had tragedy strike midway through projects where the brushes have worn out and let the magic smoke escape. So brushless was a requirement. Ryobi offers a couple of hammer drills, such as the P214 and P251. The P214 has 600 in-lb or torque (~70 Nm), while the P251 has 750 in-lb or torque (~85 Nm). The P251 was the only brushless one out of the two. There is a 20% torque bump and longer battery life over the P214. I’ll eventually buy an impact wrench for torque heavy tasks. An impact wrench is a much more suitable tool for automotive use instead of a drill with an adapter. I ended up buying the Ryobi P251 in a kit that included a 4Ah battery at the time of ordering.

Circular Saw

This ruled out the cheaper 5.5 inch circular saws. And as mentioned earlier, I wanted brushless tools where they were available. The Ryobi 6.5 inch saw is brushed, so that was ruled out pretty quickly. The cutting depth at 45 degrees is 1.44 inches and at 0 degrees is 2 inches. At 45 degrees, thich cutting depth wouldn’t be deep enough. This left the only option, the 7.25 inch saw, the Ryobi P508. The 45 degree cutting depth is 1.8 inches and the 0 degree depth is 2.44 inches.

In use the saw was comfortable to use, but not suitable for smaller hands. It had plenty of power, and with the 4Ah battery I was able to make about 150 cuts through 2×4. I don’t know how this compares to official figures. It doesn’t matter anyway, throw another battery in and keep on trucking. My biggest complaint would be the angle adjustment. It seems that the pivot points aren’t exactly aligned, so turning to 47 degrees, for a 90 degree joint, would result in the cut itself having a skew. This was only slightly off square, but when doing a chamfer joint any deviation is pretty obvious. I could work around this by clamping down my speed square with a correction of about 3 degrees. A better fix would be if the saw itself had built in adjustability to correct for this mis-alignment. This saw has been superseded by a newer model, so hopefully this saw had the adjustability. I couldn’t recommend this saw to anyone based on this cutting error.

Multitool

A multitool is a multitool in my mind, and there is usually only one available from each manufacturer anyway. Ryobi P570 was ahead in this comparison due to a deal where I could buy two 4Ah batteries and I could select the multitool as a free tool. The Dewalt multitool tool only cost more than this. Ultimately I didn’t really need the multitool to construct the deck, but I did need the two batteries. The free tool was a nice bonus.

Air inflator

The Ryobi P737D is a tool I wanted to bring home with me when I repatriate. I saw a price drop on this that was hard to walk past. Currently I use this to inflate balls and as an air duster. It feels a little light weight, but it does the job. The airduster feature was useful on the deck to clean out holes, or blow chaff out of the gaps in the decking. I’m not a fan of the quick connector head for the fittings. The quick connector has a habit of flipping and then the fitting then falls out which gets tiresome quickly. I haven’t tried it on car tyres yet, but I’d expect it to take a long time to fully inflate a tyre from empty. My intended use is to adjust tyre pressures only by a few PSI at the racetrack. Otherwise the tool does what it says.

Pressure Washer

By now I had settled on the Ryobi system. I purchased the Ryobi RY120350 to keep the deck clean, as well as to deal with the algae that had been growing on the concrete. This is the newest tool to arrive, so I haven’t had a chance to fully test it out. So far I have cleaned the algae growing on painted concrete. Is 320 PSI enough to actually clean it off? It turns out the short answer is yes. A longer answer is yes, with some work. The only setting that supplies sufficient pressure is the 15 degree mode. But this doesn’t provide a very wide jet and the nozzle needs to be very close to the ground. This leaves a very narrow path cleaned. A 4Ah battery lasted about 40 minutes. I used the feed hose in a bucket that was being slowly refilled by a hose left running slowly. I would have attached it directly to the tap, but the old hose and old tap have fused themselves together. A project for another day.

The ergonomics could be improved. Even with my large hands the handle is on the larger side, I can’t see this comfortably being used by women. Children should never be using high pressure devices. The balance could be improved, when sat down with the spray attachment attached it will fall forward. I could just lay it down on the ground. However even if it is waterproof I still don’t like the idea of placing my electronics in standing water. So I just place it up against a vertical object instead, a wall or a tree. Ultimately this tool serves the purpose I was looking to fill. It cleans the algae off of the concrete, it was cheap enough, and I didn’t want to buy a bulky dedicated high pressure washer. I would recommend this tool however,  as it fills a niche slot don’t expect miracles.

December, 2020