100 ft. Bold Line Chalk Reel Kit with Blue Chalk

great tool, it make your job easier

It worked great

100 ft. Bold Line Chalk Reel Kit with Blue Chalk is useful for me as DIY for home improvement projects. Easy to use. After snap to leave very noticeable blue line at once. The wheel crank reels in the line quickly & easiest. I use it fro my deck project, fence project, woods to cut straight on blue line instead of use pencil and ruler to line straight to cut.

The 100 feet of this bold line chalk reel kit is long enough for any job. It comes with blue chalk and is easy to fill and use. The gear design is good and it works well. The line itself is a heavy braided line that you can pull hard on over its length to snap a good line. This is perfect for big tile jobs in the lay out and keeping it all straight.

I requested this item through the Home Depot Seeds program in exchange for my unbiased review. This product was of interest to me since I am in the process of building a new brick patio in my backyard and I want to ensure that alongside the bricks uniform shape that my outside perimeter is also square via deck corner to fence facing. I also plan to use this chalk line when I replace the plaster walls in my home with new drywall to eliminate wall and ceiling cracks from the house shifting over the past 90 years. After opening the package I inspected the chalk line to test how the line would feed and how it retracted as well as how well the reel held itself securely when not in use. Overall, the reel functioned well, if not a little stiff right out of the box. But this is to be expected before a tool with moving parts is "broken in". I then picked up the chalk bottle and to my dismay found that there was no cap supplied to reseal the bottle tip which is required to be cut open at an angle with a utility knife to fill the chalk reel reservoir. Another feature I miss on this reel compared to my dad's older chalk reel is a reservoir sliding window for refilling, but that is minor in the overall use. Filling the reservoir went smoothly without any mess since I made sure to shake the reel to settle the chalk to the bottom of the reservoir a little at a time until filled above the top of the wound line. I then took the reel out to the backyard and hooked the line clip to the fence panel near the ground and held the reel firmly while slowly walking towards the deck corner while being sure to orient the line feed opening towards the fence panel to prevent snagging. Once I got to the deck corner I held the rewind lever firmly and the reel enough to make the line taut before snapping the line once. This produced a nice clean line, even on uneven ground with a mixture of grass and broadleaf weeds. Retracting the line back into the reel took a firm touch initially since as stated before the moving parts had not yet been "broken in". I expect this to get a little easier as the tool is used more often. Milwaukee does promote the gear protection that allows the clutch to slip to avoid breaking gear teeth when rewinding line, but I found this mechanism to be finicky. This feature can admittedly be seen as both awkward as well as convenient though since it also enables the lever to be positioned for secure transport where the lever will not swing free when in a bag. Overall, I am giving this chalk reel kit a 4 out of 5 stars for a well built tool that performs the intended task with accuracy and without making a larger mess, but that is missing minor features and can be awkward for first time users.