Nils owners

[cps420us]

I bought my first gas auger this year and went Nils after reading all the good things about them. I had a 6 in. Nils hand auger and ordered the 8 in. gas. Right now I have the 6 in. on the head and its impressive. The only concern with the 8 in. blade, is it seems to get stuck half way through a hole, and I'm not pushing down either. There are no nicks or dings in the blade, and its maybe only cut 10 holes. I've actually had to lock the gear case to back the blade out by hand. It seems the only way to cut is actually lift up on the power head while drilling. Has anyone else had this problem? I'm thinking maybe sending it for resharpening thinking the factory might have been a little off on the cutting edge geometry? Any thoughts

[aczr2k]

I'm going to say that your auger is not broke in yet and has not developed full power. On mine it seemed to take a lot of holes to finally get power. I do lift up on mine a little and occasionally it will stick on the bottom of the hole. Not fun at all when that happens since I don't have the gearbox lock.

[Deitz Dittrich]

i'll echo the above post. For some reason them nills take a while to break in fully.. but once it is, its a cutting machine.!

[cps420us]

Makes sense, thanks. I'll leave the 6 in. on for now, no problems with that. When I bought it, my dad thought it was a little spendy, until his recoil on his SM broke. He had to use the Nils. He's buying one next fall now.

[DTro]

Your blade could also be damaged and appear to be good. I can never visually see when my blade is dull, but I sure can tell when I drill.

If you want to rule out your blade, either try it on a different head, or send it to Frank (Surface Tension) and you will be assured that the blade is better than new when it comes back.

You shouldn't have to do that with a brand new blade, but it's a relatively inexpensive way to rule it out.

[Surface Tension]

I'm thinking you have a combination of blade in excellent shape and a engine that needs to be broke in. You could use the 6" on the powerhead for a while till its broken in.

When it binds resist rocking the auger back and forth. That could bend the blade and bend the drill.

Remove the drill by locking like you have and, clean the hole out. You should notice a straight cut. If it looks like a series of steps caused by drifting, then it is the blade. Usually it'll spin free at each step then bit and cut again.

[Jim Almquist]

I know that the first year I used mine it seemed like I had to apply a little lift to get it to cut nice. Now it just cuts great!

[Northlander]

I have noticed, especially when it real cold out, that if I let my auger warm up for a minute or so while running it up and down the rpms that it really helps. The only time I have this issue is if I dont warm it up good on cold days. If it continues after a hundred holes or so send that blade in to Surface Tension and he will get it back to you better than new. Many times you can not tel at all by eye if the blade is just a little off. I had 1 blade doing the "step" thing and brought it to ST and he had that baby burnin holes for me in no time.

[SFC]

Bought a used Nils off Hso classifieds, that thing is just rippen the holes. It always shocks me as to how thick the ice is after I cut the hole. Cut a bunch today and thought we lost some ice, but it was still 22 inches. Great auger!!