Do you *really* need that much strength? The roll pin should be
plenty. I consider the dowel pin or the solid carbide pin to be
seriously extreme conditions.

There really is no way todetermine howmuch force thepin would be
subjected to, which is why I said I want to go with the stongest
corrosion resistant material that would stay in the hole.(If it fails,
I'll just have to try something else).

Note that with a dowel pin, you would drill the hole through the
shaft slightly undersized, and use an undersized reamer to make it a
just *barely* undersized hole.

I've only seen bits and reamers in 1/8" size increments.

I have a Dremel. :-)

I see deburring bits and simular in the Dremel catalog. The various
Dremel tools have different bits for different operations on wood,
plastic, and metal(including stainless). I'll see if anyone at the
Dremel forum has any ideas.

SFM recommendations?

Material specification, first?

1) What material you are drilling? (IIRC, it was a stainless
steel, but don't expect me to remember which stainless steel.

303 stainless steel.

2) Drill bit material? You've got the choices of Chinese or
Indian pseudo-HSS, a real US (or European) made HSS, a high
cobalt steel (and which percentage), or a solid carbide drill
for starters. Also, there are various coatings TiN, TiAlN, or
various others which affect the friction, and thus the proper
speed.

As a firm believer(victim) of Murphy's law I tend to lean towards
getting the best within reason, even it if is over-kill. Hence, my
penchant for "over-manufacturing". :-)

As for the drill bit. The most use I can get out of it for what I paid
is a priority(using 303 stainless steel and a common standard
lubricant). So the idea is to get a general idea of what the best bits
are.

If it comes down to chosing the *right* SFM, I would pick up my
copy of _Machinery's Handbook_ (a recent edition), and look up
what the proper SFM would be for the combination. And I would
then probably use something a bit slower, as these are for
massive production, and are a speed selected to make the optimum
tradeoff between the time the job takes and the life of the
drill bit. And the time taken to change the bit counts for more
than the cost of the bit in this equation. You won't have
production capable machinery, so don't push it.

Ok. Since "time" is a complete non-factor for me, would a 20% drop in
the rated rpm and/or feed rate suffice?

The chart on page 1030 of the 24th edition of _Machinery's
Handbook_, for 303 SS (among some others) suggests for HSS that
you use a SFM of 20 (Opt) or 40 (Avg), with a feed of
0.015" per revolution (Opt) or 0.007"/rev (Avg)

The other column for drilling assumes indexable insert drills,
which make no sense at the size were you are working.

I'm not sure how you are going to manage a known feed rate while
drilling in the lathe, unless you mount a drill chuck to the
toolpost and set the feed gearing to accomplish that.

?!? Mounting a drill chuck to the tool post is something I've not read
about before.(Back to the drawing board).

So -- make a copy of _Machinery's Handbook_ one of your
purchases. The answers to *many* of your questions can be found
there, and I will henceforth assume that you have one for such
questions.

I expect that when it arrives, it'll clear up some things.(I hope that
the 25th edition is late enough). Should I also look for the guide that
is commonly advertised for use with these?

BTW. UPS left a nameless notice at my address for three consecutive
days. Now since four of the eight family's in this partcular complex
live at the same address, if there is no name then no one would know
who is supposed to be getting a package. Anyway, I get a card in the
mail UPS stating that they made three attempts to deliver a package
from MSC... I could go on and on about my past problems with UPS(and
the neighborhood driver in particular), but... (Sigh).

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.