Five Katana 18V tools that run on the one battery

Five Katana 18V tools that all run on the one battery

The thing that quietly costs you money with cordless tools is not the tools, it is the batteries. Buy a drill from one brand and a trimmer from another and a blower from a third, and you end up with three chargers, three battery systems and a shelf full of flat ones that fit nothing else. The Katana 18V Charge-All range is built the other way around, so one battery runs the lot of them.

That is why nearly everything in the range is sold as a skin, which means the tool on its own with no battery and no charger in the box. You buy the battery and charger once and every tool after that costs you less.

The drill

The 18V cordless hammer drill is the one to buy first, because it is the tool you will use most and the one that will still be earning its keep in ten years. Keyless chuck, variable speed, and the hammer setting for when you hit masonry rather than timber, which is the difference between putting a shelf into a brick wall and giving up on it.

The impact driver

People buy this second and then wonder why they waited. A drill turns a screw. An impact driver hits it while it turns, so it drives long screws into hard timber without stripping the head or twisting your wrist. If you are building a deck or putting up a fence, this is the tool that stops the job being a fight.

The angle grinder

The 125mm cordless grinder handles cutting, grinding and polishing on metal, tile and concrete. Cordless matters more here than it does on a drill, because the jobs a grinder gets used for are usually the ones a long way from a power point.

The blower

Light, easy to hold up for a while, and it clears leaves off a path, grass clippings off a driveway and sawdust off a bench. This is the tool people describe as a luxury right up until they own one, at which point it comes out every week.

The line trimmer

The 18V trimmer spins to 7200 rpm with a 250mm cutting width, and it is the tool for edges, fence lines and the long grass a mower cannot get at. Cordless suits a trimmer particularly well, because it is a stop start job and you are not dragging a lead around the yard while you do it.

Batteries and chargers, which is the actual decision

The 2Ah battery is the light one and it suits the drill, the driver and the torch. If you are running the trimmer, the blower or the grinder for any length of time, the bigger battery is worth it, because those three draw hard and a small battery on a heavy tool is a lot of standing around waiting.

A single port charger does the job for most people. The twin port one is for anybody who is going to be running a tool while a second battery charges, which is most of a Saturday if you are on a real job.

Shop related products

• Katana 18V Cordless Hammer Drill, skin only. The first one to buy, with a hammer setting for masonry.
• Katana 18V Cordless Impact Driver. For driving long screws into hard timber without stripping them.
• Katana 18V Cordless 125mm Angle Grinder. Cutting, grinding and polishing, well away from a power point.
• Katana 18V Cordless Blower. Leaves off the path, clippings off the drive, sawdust off the bench.
• Katana 18V 2Ah Battery. The battery the whole Charge-All range runs on, with a single and a twin port charger to suit.

The 18V line trimmer and the rest of the range are in the power tools online, and there is more garden gear in the garden range. The Katana range moves, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf before you come in for a particular one.

Read next

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• How do I plant a tree?
• Setting up dripper irrigation, a beginner's guide

One battery to charge instead of four is the sort of small win I will happily talk about for longer than anyone wants.

Candeece

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