Makita dgA 452 18V 115mm Cordless Angle grinder
Price: £359 + VAT (Price includes two batteries, charger and carry case) Supplier: www.makitauk.com The Makita’s spindle lock is large and to one side of the body, making it the easiest of the bigger machines to grip and hold with one hand so you have the other hand free to tighten or loosen the lock nut. The other machines use a U-shaped peg spanner on the lock nut, but the Makita has a simple straight bar with a hole and the two pegs at one end – and in fact this turns out to be the easiest to use as well. It is joint heaviest at 2.3kg.
There are four charge level indicator LEDs on the 4.0Ah battery, operated by a push button, so you have a good sense of how much charge you have remaining, and there’s an electronic current limiter with warning lamp to help protect the motor from overload – it stops you from working it too hard to the detriment of the tool. An anti-restart function does the same job by not letting the motor get going again until it has cooled and recovered. No load speed is 10,000 rpm.
The on/off lock switch is mounted on the top of the body, which is slightly less convenient than those with side-mounted switches, while the disc guard is adjusted with a single screw – either regular screwdriver or Phillips – but proved stiff and needed care not to strip the slot at first use.
It seems the smoothest and marginally the quietest of machines when running under no load.