DEWALT Hole Saw Mandrel, Quick Change, 1-1/4-Inch to 6-Inch Diameter, 7/16-Inch Shank (DW1803)

Went though just about all brands in the market! Best quality by far!!

As stated, the quick change feature of this mandrel is great. The 2 spring loaded pins seem very durable and hold the hole saw nicely. No more praying the hole saw stays threaded on the mandrel! There's really not much else to say other than this works great, and you'll need a powerful 1/2" chuck drill for those 4"+ holes. Hold on tight!!! I'm happy with my purchase.

Easily the best mandrel I’ve used. Really easy to use, get hole saws on/off, etc. Love it. And it DID fit my 3/8 Dewalt cordless drill.Only knock, and the only reason it doesn’t get a full 5 stars, is the center bit. Yes, I understand that you’re supposed to drill a pilot hole with another bit, but still - the bit breaks way, WAY too easy. It snapped off almost immediately on my first use. Luckily it is replaceable.

Although, I used it on a relatively small hole - 2 inch - the mandrel worked great and there was no problem with the hole saw tightening up - it was removed without difficulty - I expect that it will work equally well when I use it on some 4 inch holes in the future.

Such a life saver.Best quick release mandrel ever!I had a Milwaukee. Had to unlock it w/ a hex key. I wasn't able to remove the hole saw because it got stuck.Such a bad design.

Worked very well for project. Very high quality so will be used many more times and should last without worrying about replacing.

Great tool, easiest arbor i've had to use. I have not had much run time with it yet, so cannot speak to longevity. easy to chuck and unchuck, and just overall a very handy arbor. beats my current ones in terms of ease of use and overall design quality.

This DeWalt arbor worked great. I particularly like the way the cap is shaped. It's easy to retract and hold while spinning a hole saw on or off the arbor.I happened to have three hole saws that were all close to 4", and none were DeWalt. See pic. Everything fit perfectly. The Irwin, Milwaukee, and Lenox hole saws all installed easily on the DeWalt arbor. Interchangeable. Maybe you knew that already but here's the pic to prove it.This arbor fit nicely in the 3/8" chuck on my Hitachi drill. That said, a 4" hole saw in wood is a torque-hungry monster. A 3/8" drill may be able to handle a couple holes, with care. Cutting holes in drywall for recessed lights, etc., could be done with a drill that size. If the project is bigger than that, a 1/2" drill is the way to go, for safety, neatness, and wear and tear on the drill.

This will be money well spent if you use the bi-metal hole saw very much, especially the larger diameters. The arbor will even accept hole saws other than the Dewalt brand. The locking pins will even match up on my other hole saws so...I am not sure if this is by design or by accident but the end result is they fit and it really makes your hole saw fit good and snug. You can just drill away with no sweat.A mighty fine product at a fair price.

I've only ever purchased cheap hole saws and shanks from my local discount tool store. I've had hit and miss luck with those. Usually they end up wearing loose and the hole saw begins to wobble. When purchasing this, I had a hard time believing you could "quickly" swap hole saws with this thing and that they would still be held on tightly. Let me just say, this thing works amazingly well.It attaches with threads that screw into the back of the hole saw blade. Once you get about 1/4" in, you pull the silver colored part away from the the back of the hole saw blade and screw another 1/4" or so. When you release the silver part, it releases 2 pins that will line up with the hole saw blade to lock it into place. Quick, easy, no tools required and it is SOLID. I am very happy with this product and would not hesitate to purchase it again.

This came from America so took a little while but thats OK nicely made good price very happy.

As this was my first hole saw and I didn't already have the mandrel portion, I ordered the combo of 2"-dia (2"-max-depth) hole saw and 7/16"-shank mandrel [DW1803] recommended by Amazon. The 7/16" mandrel shank is too large for my venerable 3/8"-chuck corded Black & Decker drill, so I used it in my 1/2"-chuck cordless Dewalt drill. In retrospect, since the mandrel shank is nicely hex-shaped to prevent slippage within the chuck, the similar 3/8"-shank Dewalt mandrel [DW1805] would have also worked just fine. If you only have a drill with a 3/8" chuck or have drills with various chuck sizes like me, that's the one you want.To newbies like me the quick-change mandrel is a little confusing at first, so thanks to the previous commenters who provided tips on how to use it. Briefly, the Dewalt quick-change mechanism is both a locking and anti-locking device. The 2 pegs in the silver-colored locking collar snap into one of the 2 opposing-hole pairs in the bottom of any Dewalt hole saw to hold the cutting end in place, but at the same time prevent the hole saw from locking itself onto the mandrel under the torque of drilling. Just slip the mandrel shank into your drill chuck & tighten down, then with the drill positioned the way you'll be using it (butt end against your belly), use one hand to pull the locking collar toward you as far as you can, and the other hand to screw the barrel end of the hole saw onto the threaded part of the mandrel. You should end up such that tightening the barrel part all the way down leaves the locking pins misaligned with both of the crosswise pairs of receiving holes, at which point you unscrew the barrel just enough to allow the pins to snap into the nearest hole pair. In my case this left a very slight gap between the flat bottom of the barrel part and the mandrel but there was no discernible looseness of the hole saw, which I expect is exactly as intended by the assembly designers.For precision work I found it helpful to drill a 1/8"-dia pilot hole which helps center the 1/4" pilot bit of the mandrel and get the cut started nicely. Once the annular cut is established the hole saw is conveniently "self-centering," since the entering portion of the barrel has no choice but to follow the outlines of the existing annular cut. It can be surprisingly tricky to keep the hole saw axis aligned precisely at the proper angle, so when precision is needed, I recommend drilling at least one practice hole in a scrap block of wood of the same or similar kind as the actual target material. My first (practice) hole ended up a dismaying 3-4 degrees off-kilter, but my second was better. If you really need precision and will be cutting multiple holes, I suggest setting up some kind drilling jig to keep things moving at the desired angle.As others have noted, gentle circular rocking of the hole saw - but not enough to jam up the cut - helps clear the sawdust out and keep things progressing smoothly. The very sharp teeth of the hole saw are in a slightly-offset staggered pattern which cuts a 1/8" kerf, slightly wider than the walls of the barrel are thick, in order to prevent jamming and allow the resulting sawdust to flow out easily.I used the 2" hole saw to form the male end (tenon) of something I call a "peg mortise", in a pair of 4x4s joining at right angle [See here for pics: http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=409015&postcount=84/]. (Being strictly an amateur carpenter, I don't know if there is a different 'standard' name for this type of joint.) Here the 1/8" kerf width of the Dewalt hole saw proves very handy in a further way, because I then used a standard 1.75" auger bit to drill the female end (mortise) of the joint, and everything fit beautifully. (I could have also used a 1.75"-OD hole saw for this, but didn't own such a one, whereas I did have an auger bit of the needed size. An auger bit for the mortise hole requires more material to be removed, but has the advantage of not leaving a wood plug that needs to be chiseled out - pretty much a "six of one, half-dozen of the other" deal. On the other hand if your mortise goes all the way through the piece of receiving wood, a hole saw will definitely be more more efficient for that kind of hole.) Lastly, I used the centering hole left in the tenon by the pilot bit of the hole-saw mandrel by drilling a same-1/4"-diameter hole the rest of the way through the center of the mortise (which in my case only went 1.5" sideways into a 4x4, roughly halfway through) and then using a lag screw started from the opposite side of the 4x4 to firmly fasten everything together. The above link has pictures and more details. A very nice way of doing such joinery when appearance matters and you can't just slap things together with a metal joist hanger or whatnot.All in all, a great tool(set)! Thanks to the folks at Dewalt for really thinking the design through and - as always - manufacturing a professional-quality product, built to last.

Once again a great product from Dewalt. I bought this Mandrel to use with the 2-1/2", 4", and 6" holes saw i recently got. I works really well and I can change the hole saws in about 5 seconds or about the time it takes to tighten the hole saw onto the mandrel's threads. I have used it for the 2-1/2" hole saw and the 6" hole saw and it worked flawlessly for both. Its rated for 1-1/4" to 6" holes saws, so that pretty much covers the most widely used sizes for hole saws.The 7/16" shank fits well into the 1/2" chuck capacity of the corded drill I used. The spring-loaded collar and drive pins work very well with the small and large hole saws I used it with.