Side by Side Comparison of: Schroeder vs Faithfull vs Stanley Tools vs Steelex

it works ok

Used in my collection of tools

Excellent tool. You get what you pay for is true with this tool.

Great quality !! I recommend going with this size so that you can handle both 5/16" and 1/4" drills.

It has a keyless chuck. Sometimes that's good. Not here. If you use this as a screwdriver, any strong torque you put on this will loosen the chuck making your bit at least not turn the screw and at worst--fall out. Also, the long handle opposite the chuck end, has a tendency to come loose. It's simply screwed into the tool so if the tool rotates as you turn the crank, the handle will unscrew. Honestly, this is simply ridiculous! This is a reasonably expensive drill boasting that legendary German engineering...and it's pretty much a joke to use as a screw driver. Granted, it was not marketed as a drill/driver and it doesn't serve well as a screw driver.So use it as a drill only. I just used this drill tonight to drill 9 pilot holes for screws of varying sizes (so I used a couple of different drill bits). As a drill, this tool worked very well. It was easy to align and easy to hold. Using a "egg beater" style drill like this takes a bit of practice to get the hang of it. Because you are applying torque to only one side of the drill, it's easy to wiggle the drill as you use it causing your hole not to be straight. Once you have that skill down, this drill works just fine for drilling into anything that is relatively soft. Drilling into metal, concrete/brick, or very hard dense wood may be quite challenging because it can get extremely hard to turn the crank. Even so, this drill works just fine AS A DRILL. Again, don't even bother considering this for a screw driver! To put it plainly, it sucks as a screw driver Also, it should go without saying that this is a manual tool so you need fairly strong hands to use it. If you don't have strong hands or you have an injury to your hand or wrist, it'll be hard to use this.Would I buy this drill again? Not sure; maybe not. For the money, you can find some really great, reputable vintage/antique manual drills on eBay. At the time of this writing, this drill is selling for over $50. That's WAY over priced for what you get! I guess you're paying for that "German Engineering".Also, because of the weaknesses that this has when used as a screw driver and the hand/wrist strength needed to use this, it could be frustrating for a kid to use.UPDATE: Well, I'm not quite sure what I was doing wrong before when using this as a screw driver, but last night, I put a Phillips head bit in it and let my wife use it to a re-upholstery project she was doing. The Schroeder zipped those screws out of the bench seat very quickly and the chuck never loosened once! Perhaps I hadn't used it enough to "wear the new off it" before I formed my opinion about it as a screw driver. It worked well last night as a screw driver both to remove and to insert screws into a bench. I have also used it for several drilling jobs around the house and it works perfectly as a drill. It's light weight, tight (no wobble or looseness, and steady. I've raised my opinion to 5 stars.

Lets face it, this item is a bit of a novelty. You can buy a power drill for less money which will do everything you want to do. However this is just way more fun than the power tool. It really is amazing how well this can drill through plastic, wood, or even metal. Even at shockingly low RPM a small drill bit will go right into whatever you want.I did some basic testing on this drill. Every time you turn the wheel, the drill bit spins four times. I decided to go all out and spin it as fast as I can. I was able to spin the wheel 24 times in 10 seconds. This works out to the bit rotating at nearly 600 RPM.This has some uses for powering other devices. I actually bought it because I was building a simple hand crank generator. To really get the generator to work well it requires a belt, pulley, or chain to get higher RPM. While that would still be ideal, it is a lot of work to actually construct that. Instead this can be hooked up to a shaft producing similar results. I suspect I could even power a small home-made hand crank Van De Graff generator with it, although I have not yet tried.While the drill appears to be well made, it is really quite odd that there is not a second gear connected to the large gear for support. The frame even has an intentional space for this second gear, but the gear is absent. In the short run, this gear isn't really needed because it runs just fine on the one it has. I suspect over time the large gear will come loose since it is only supported on one side though. Amazon does not yet sell it, but this same company makes a model which sells for about twice as much which appears to have this feature along with better handles(the handle on the side of this model is just too small). Another issue is that while the two stationary handles are wooden, the handle that you actually spin is plastic. I don't know that it is an issue, but it sure looks like a piece which won't last long. Really though, I don't use a drill enough to justify the additional cost of the better drill. With how well this is made I am not even sure that it makes sense to buy this model rather than the one half its price. For my use it probably would suffice.

Great otherwise, very solid. Too much torque could strip the gears, though. Would not be ideal for drilling into metal.

Wrong item I received it.

It's very flimsy, the famous German quality is no longer what it used to be 50 years ago. I bought this "tool" for my 6 year old son, who cannot yet handle power tools. It's kind of OK for him, but the handle needs to be re-tightened quite often, otherwise it just unscrews itself (the handle is screwed in to allow making the tool shorter, probably for shipping, because it makes no sense to constantly be disassembling the tool at home). The chuck is keyless, and as a result you cannot really tighten the drill bit properly - several times the bit got stuck in wood and fell out of the chuck. After a single day of use, the wooden handles are scratched in multiple places and the color is off, and we didn't really do anything to the handles, except laying the tool on the table between the uses. This tool seemed to have better reviews than other comparable ones, so it's not clear if there is a better option. BTW, you can buy this drill at Sears for less than a half of the Amazon price ($25-$30).

Amendment written 2/16/2008===========================I see that the Peck Tool Company has changed the description of this drill from "Heavy Duty" to "Standard Duty." Judged against this different description, my opinion is that this drill is a five-star product. I say this because there is probably not a not a better quarter-inch hand drill manufactured today. Indeed, I would not have returned it if I did not already have a quarter-inch single-pinion hand drill (bought about 45 years ago) in my tool collection. In all fairness, a quarter-inch drill as sturdy as this one doesn't need the second pinion unless you expect to abuse it and yet have it survive for use by your grandchildren.For a 3/8-inch chuck, the second pinion becomes more necessary. But don't buy a larger chuck than you need. A 1/4-inch chuck is difficult to find, and will fit into places where a larger one will not.It's too bad there isn't a common description that fits between "Standard Duty" and "Heavy Duty." The quality of this drill is well above "Standard." You will not be disappointed with it for any normal use.(I have changed the title of this review. I would also change the number of stars I have posted--but if there is a way to do so, I cannot find it).Original review follows for reference=====================================If you want a reasonably sturdy hand drill for light-duty use around the house, this drill will meet or exceed your needs. But if you are a trade-person who intends daily use of this drill for decades, you will be disappointed.An ordinary "eggbeater" hand drill has two gears--the driving gear which you turn with a hand crank, and the driven or "pinion" gear, which is attached to and rotates the chuck. When the drill is used, the force transmitted through the gears tends to push the driving and pinion gears apart at their point of engagement, causing the driving gear to tilt on its axle. In the extreme case, the axle will bend, allowing the gears to disengage.In a more robust design, a second pinion gear is mounted to the frame at a point directly opposite the pinion that drives the chuck. This second pinion gear also engages the driving gear and rotates as the driving gear turns. Otherwise, it is connected to nothing.The sole--but very important--function of the second pinion gear is to support the driving gear at a point opposite the pinion connected to the chuck. This prevents the driving gear from tilting, and removes the bending force from the driving-gear axle.From the price, the item description, and indeed from close inspection of the illustration, I believe it is reasonable to expect this drill to be the more sturdy, two-pinion, design. Alas, it is not.This drill is designed so that the frame could accept a second pinion, but it is absent. There is only an empty space where this second pinion and its axle could be. Thinking the lack of the second pinion to be an accidental and unusual omission from the assembly, I called the United States vendor, for whom this was a new item. (I may have bought the first one they sold). The vendor checked remaining stock, and found their others to be the same. They quickly agreed to accept the return of the drill, and immediately refunded my total cost including the cost of return shipping.I've happily given the Vendor a five-star rating.This drill does have a fine-quality chuck. If it were described as a light-duty drill, or as a precision drill, and if the frame were not designed to accept a second pinion yet did not have one, I could give this product a higher rating. But when I compare the "heavy-duty" description to the actual construction of the drill, two stars is the most generous I can be.