"Dave" wrote in message
...
Hiya

I have just tried drilling some 3mm thick mild steel with a 13mm
hole......... hell of a lot of noise, loads of vibration and now the drill
seems to do anything but drill!

Ok, please stop laughing, I'm a beginer!!

I've got the tee shirt for that, but it was a long time ago :-)
I've drilled many metals since then and have learned a lot about the
subject.

The drill bit was a Piranna 'Bullet' that it said was for drilling metal,

I'm not sure about the quality of that drill, but see later.

but what I have only just realsied is that the max recomended rpm for 10mm
was about 1000. The drill was the cheapest Clarkes one speed drill (i'm on
a
budget and this might be a '1 of' project) so I guess this is much faster.

The maximum speed you quote is for best conditions. 1000 RPM is a bit fast
for the average home user.

So my questions a
Is the drill running too fast? What speed should i drill 12mm holes at?
Does
anyone know where I can the cheapest drill to drill at the recommended
speed?

Thanks for any help given

Some one else has said that you should pilot hole the metal by using a
smaller drill, followed by a larger one. Good advice.
When you come to drill the hole to the size you want, you will need a much
slower drill rotation speed. The only way to do this, is to start and then
stop the power to the drill, thus keeping the rotation speed down. This will
be hard on the power tool, but kind on the twist drill. If the power tool
heats up, take a break till it cools down.

By keeping a heavy pressure all the time, on the drill, (very important you
keep lots of pressure while cutting the hole) on the power drill, to ensure
that you continue cutting, you will be better off starting and stopping the
drill by flicking the switch on every few moments. This keeps the rotational
speed down and will prevent the cutting edge of the drill from blunting
through heat.

HTH

And I hope you understand what I am saying :-)

Dave

Dave