For the Medway Handyman!!

Steve Walker wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:52:09 GMT, The Medway Handyman wrote:

Cash wrote:
GMM wrote:
I need to send a (network, not power!) cable through a door frame.
The plan is to go through the plaster beside the frame (a couple of
inches before an adjoining door), at a bit of an angle to come out
on the edge of the architrave on the other side. The total depth
of this hole will be 200 - 250mm (well, 8 - 10 inches anyway) and
most of it will be through timber.
Soooooo....I was trying to find a drill long enough to get through
that lot. Plenty of masonry jobbies to be had, SDS or not, but
they're not very good on timber. The only things I can find are
extended flat bits (which might be tricky to get going at the
angle I need) and augur bits, which might be fine but really
should be in a brace and a) I haven't got one and b) I couldn't
turn a brace in that position.

Why doesn't anyone sell a standard HSS/spur/multipurpose bit this
kind of length? More importantly, what's the right way to do this?

Cheers

GMM,

You can get 'long series' suitable twist drills from reputable tool
suppliers long enough to do what you want, or you could just grind
the thread off the auger bit and stick it in an electric drill [1]
keeping a fairly heavy pressure on it as you drill the hole. (A
bit brutish, but this trick has often got me out of a bit of
bother, and I now keep a few of the common sizes (that have been
adapted that way) in the toolbox).

Why would you want to remove the thread off an auger bit? Just
stick it in a suitably powerful mains drill and it will go straight
through. Plaster might dull it a bit, but who cares?

The problem is that the thread will tend to 'pull' the auger in the
direction that you don't want it to go - taking the thread off resolves
this - sometimes "brute force and ignorance" (which seems on occasion to be
your trade mark [angle grinder man]) just doesn't equate to a reasonable
job!

[1] Just make sure that you get one without the tapered square on
the end - or if that is not possible, just cut the taper off.

Tapered square? WTF is that?

Now this really shows your lack of knowledge - go and have a look at an
auger bit that fits into a brace (if you actually now what that is) and you
will find that it is square and tapered in its length - which is totally
unsuitable for fitting in any drill that only holds round stock.

Now I could have been really technical and pointed him to B&Q to get an
auger that has a pointy bit on one end and 6 straight sides on the other -
but There We Are Then, we can't all be perfect can we?

Now I now why I was fed up with reading the Life and Times of the "Grizzly
Handyman" and consigned him to the darkest cave on the computer. ;-)

Cash