this is a Makita sk102z and I have only just recently purchase a
self-leveling laser level after watching Razors review of the laser level that
he uses I think Razor paid 200 pounds or more for his. I managed to get this one off
eBay for 110 pound including delivery so it was a quite a bit cheaper it's a
cross line laser level so it does horizontal and vertical lines and it also
comes with a carry bag and a wall mount at the minute I've got it mounted onto a
camera tripod and the actual screw that goes into it I think is a quarter-inch
UNC screw so if you've got a camera mount with a quarter-inch unc screw you can
screw it to your actual camera tripod so I've actually been using it for aligning
these tiles that I have been fitting and you can see the the laser line goes right
round from one side of the room to the other side of the room so it's
absolutely brilliant for saving time and it's very accurate for when you're
doing jobs like this to be honest it's hard to fault the actual machine itself
it is a very nifty piece of kit and if you look on the top here we've got the
on/off button and then we've also got the pulse mode for when you're outside
then there's also a lock light that's on there that tells you when it's locked
if you press the on button again changes to just a horizontal line and press it
again it change it's just a vertical line press it again the cross comes back
on little red light that's on there is the battery light one thing you've really
got to be aware of is to make sure that you unlock it if we now look at the line
of the tiles that I just showed you earlier you can see that it's moved and
the line is moved maybe an inch two inch in places that's because the pendulum is
now locked and you should only really lock it when you transport it anywhere
so if we now unlock it and the pendulum will settle and you can see that it's
now perfectly level again so apparently it'll shoot a beam 15 meters so it's
superb for lining up anything vertically horizontal it but you should always
check it periodically using a spirit level just to make sure that it's not
faulty so this is the bag that it comes in so you've got a little cushion bag to
protect it you can put it in there and there's also that sleeve that you
can wrap around it and in there you'll also find a target for when you use it
outside and it also comes with this mount
now this mount is that's the magnetic so it's got two magnets on there so you can
stick it on to something magnetic let's give you a demo although it's just stuck
to that screw but the only problem is you couldn't really put the laser level on
there because it'll probably fall off you need to find something with a
bigger metal surface fit to stick to the only downside of it is that when you fix
the laser level to this there's actually no adjustment in it which is an absolute
pain in the backside when I set up the laser level for tiling this bathroom I
actually set it up starting tiling approximately three inches from the
floor maybe 4 inches so I'll just put it on a block for that but then
I need it to lift it up two tiles in height and I was going to use this and
what I was going to do is I was going to screw it to the actual stud there and
then I could shoot the beam all the way around the room without having to
move it but instead I had to use the tripod on the camera because it was
impossible to get it on here and get it accurate because once you put your laser level on
there the screws are for fixing it or even if you marked it it's very
difficult getting it millimeter perfect to line up with your tile so if you're
a millimeter out there's nothing you can do about it because there's no actual height
adjustments in the Bracket so that's the real downside of
it I'm pretty sure that for a few extra quid they could just incorporate a
simple slider where you could have some kind of movements and get maybe you know
20-30 mil of movements in it and if it did that with the bracket it would
absolutely brilliant but as it stands the actual laser itself you can't fault
it does a fantastic job and it makes your life a hell of a lot easier
But the bracket that it comes with for mounting it really needs changing so
there is some height adjustments in it and that would make it a lot better so it's
just a couple of things that you should be aware of first as I mentioned before
you've got to make sure that the pendulum is unlocked if it's locked it's
not going to give you a level line so that's the first thing the second thing
is never stare into the beam because it can actually damage your eyes so
whatever you do don't go staring into it because it will damage your eyes so
because there is no actual adjustment in the actual bracket that holds the laser level
what I've done is stuck a piece of metal to the wall here and it's the only thing
I've gotten metallic on with it's actually flat so that's the blade off
my circular saw so I actually just stuck that to the wall temporarily using some
mammoth tape so I've just got a piece of that off stuck it on the back of the
blade and I've stuck the blade to the wall and now I've got some adjustment because
it can slide the actual magnetic brackets up and down until I get it in
the right place but it would make it a lot easier if the actual bracket had some
kind of height adjustment on it so I'll just show you what I'm actually using it
for and I'm actually using it to level these tiles up and you can see that the
laser lines in the grout lines all the way across there and it comes across
I've put my spirit level on the tile tracker just to make sure that it
is leveled and then the beam goes all the way around the here and the beauty
of fixing to the wall is that can actually turn the level and I can point from
one grout line in one corner turn it right around and get the other grout
line and make sure that they both line up and that way you're
guaranteed to get your tiles perfectly straight