Anti-Vibration Shortcut

In January, I talked about Makita's Anti-Vibration Technology for demolition hammers. They had done a swell job and I commend them for it. Now, Bosch has a promotion coming up for their Anti-Vibration solution. I don't think of it as Anti-Vibration technology, but rather as more of a shortcut.

Free Anti-Vibration Gloves by Mail

That's right. Bosch isn't improving the tool they build at all. Instead, they're giving a mail-in certificate for a pair of padded gloves. As Matt called it, in 4 - 6 weeks you'll be enjoying a slightly more comfortable demolition experience. I don't think that'll quite meet the European standards coming up saying that the tools themselves need to reduce vibration. Ok, so this won't meet those guidelines at all.

A Real Shame

I think it's a real shame that Bosch hasn't addressed the tool itself yet, but instead is going to give people gloves. The vibrations from demolition hammers can cause some serious health problems through prolonged use, so ignoring the issue won't make it go away. What if I forget to wear those gloves? What if I find them to be too hot during the summer? What if a neighbor borrows the tool and doesn't have AV gloves? I really hope they come out with something decent down the road, because this isn't even as good as smoke and mirrors. This is way too transparent.

Anti-Vibration Technology - Jackhammers

Jackhammers, also called demolition hammers or breaker hammers, are best known for breaking up concrete roads and driveways. I usually think about the scene in Total Recall where Arnold is using one when I see a picture of one. In Hollywood, having the vibration shaking him silly is a good thing. In everyday life, that's not so good. In fact, it can be downright harmful.

Combatting Vibration
Fighting the harmful effects of vibrations from jackhammers is not only a good thing to do, but Europe will even have a standard in place soon for the amount of vibration that tools are allowed to pass to the user. Less is better when it comes to vibration, and the latest AVT (Anti-Vibration Technology) from the manufacturers is really pretty cool.

Each manufacturer has a different strategy at the moment, though. There are a ton of options, so looking at the technologies is interesting to a geek.


I'm going to have to ask about this, but it appears that Milwaukee hasn't embraced Anti-Vibration technology yet. Hey Dave, is that so? (The answer will be here when he gets it to me.)

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One of the simple ways to dampen vibration is by making the handles shock mounted. Essentially, the handles have a little bit of give, making the vibrations that the tool is giving off stop in the handles and not pass the full force to the operator. Very simple, but not totally effective. There still has to be enough force in the handles to keep the tool going in the right direction, so making them totally independent wouldn't work. But, it does indeed reduce the amount of vibration passed to the user. For an occasional user (such as a rental tool), this will be sufficient.


For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Essentially what's tough to stop is the opposite reaction. Using a counterweight, it is possible to time the movement of the counterweight with the force of the hammer and greatly reduce the vibration. In one very impressive video that Makita uses for product training, they have a competitor tool with half full water bottles taped to the handles and the top. Once power is applied, the bottles have enough vibration getting to them that it looks like a nice frothy head on top of the water. Same test on the Makita HM1810 with AVT shows very little disturbance to the surface of the water. This looks to be a huge improvement for the end user, although I've never actually tried a jackhammer.

Still in the early stages
Anti-Vibration technologies are still in their early stages, so I'm sure new things will be coming out in the near future. But for now, it's a matter of how much getting rid of the vibration is worth to you. But then, if you use it a lot it becomes a question of what's your health and safety worth.