Plasterboard, drylining and render
The pad can hold far more than the board can.
The substrate
Plasterboard, skim and lightweight render are soft and comparatively weak. Painted plaster can seal reasonably well; bare board and textured render do not.
The limit is strength, not sealing
Even where a seal forms, the board itself may fail before the vacuum does — you can pull the paper face off a plasterboard sheet.
For light interior surfaces, a self-anchoring drill is usually the wrong tool. These substrates rarely need one: they are easy to drill freehand.
Where it does help
Drilling through a finish into a solid substrate behind it, where the finish is only the first few millimetres and the load goes into masonry.
Hollow fixings
Anything fixed into board alone needs a cavity fixing rated for the load. Depth control helps avoid punching services behind the board.
At a glance
| Vacuum sealing | Poor to fair — and the board is weaker than the seal |
|---|---|
| Recommended mode & tooling | Sharp bit, hammer OFF |
| Limits on this tool | 40 mm max bit diameter, 200 mm max length, 145 mm max depth |
Common mistakes on this material
- Attaching to board and loading it — the paper face tears.
- Punching through into services behind the board.
- Using this tool where a handheld drill is plainly easier.