Metabo SB-18LTX is Extreme How-To’s Tool of the Week

If you haven’t had the pleasure of getting your hands on a Metabo power tool, you really should. Of course, that being said, after seeing what you have been missing it will be hard to settle for less.  Like many of you, some of our tools pull double duty, drills used as drivers and drivers used as drills. The SB-18LTX will do both of these tasks, and also handles our hammer drill tasks.  If you are not familiar with Metabo that may be because Metabo is a professional only tool company.  When you pick up the 18LTX, the first thing you notice is the chuck and its heft.  No apologies for overbuilding are forthcoming, but how many contractors have had to deal with chuck failures long before the drill itself wore out.  One look at the Metabo SB-18LTX and the quality workmanship shines through.

Metabo builds tool for people whose livelihood depend on them. The tool may costs a little more than other brands, but quality at any cost always does.  I will be the first to admit that I have used Metabo products far outside of their intended limits and they still perform.  The SB-18LTX is my first Metabo cordless product and already I am impressed with its battery performance.  Drilling Tapcons for a shutter install didn’t begin to test the tool’s capabilities and bluntly, this is the performance I have come to expect from Metabo.  For a contractor, the 18  volt platform offers a substantial performance upgrade over 14 volts without the bulkiness of the 36 volt platform. And the feedback we get from many contractors is the 14 volt platform tools do not meet performance expectations.  Think about it, what cordless tool gets the most use? In our work, our drill/driver combos do.  So if I am going to lay out serious money for one tool, it is going to be my bread and butter tool, a drill/driver/hammer.

Metabo Cordless Hammer Drill What's Inside View

Metabo’s chuck system is simply brilliant. By removing the taper jaw chuck, I expose the hex shaft, ready to accept driver bits.  When you are on-site, it’s nice to have a tool that can handle the various tasks you encounter.  A typical work day will see framing stud walls, and anchoring those into a concrete slab using the hammer drill feature.  Then we are drilling the studs to accept plumbing and electrical service with the high speed drill feature.   Then we use the driver feature for assembly and we follow this by going back to the hammer drill feature for installing Tapcons to fix our electrical sub panel to the block wall.  This is why having a tool like Metabo’s new SB-18LTX makes sense.  And for a few dollars more, the Metabo offers best in class performance with 885 in-lbs torque when driving, and 2″ drilling capacity in wood.  Metabo uses a four pole motor and employs circuitry to protect not only the motor but the battery from overloading. For a close up look, click on the exploded view photo.

Features found on the Metabo SB-18LTX and also found on many tools in this class, are a tool case, LED work light on the tool, keyless chuck, air cooled charger, Side-grip handle, along with two Metabo Extreme batteries . Warranty on the Metabo covers both the tool and battery for three years from date of purchase.  Bottom line, this is a tool that offers flexibility while providing best in class performance.  Coupled with Metabo’s reputation for hard core tools for hard core users, this tool is a winner in this class of cordless hammer drills for the professional.

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