Let's all give Wild Bill a round of applause, eih?
;)}
My filters left me 56 posts to look at and only
TWO
were on topic metalworking! Thanks Bill ! Good
advice
too..... I wonder how Tim worked it out?
I've been playing around making a couple of eulers
disks for the heck of it with various radius'. Got
one
at 14.5 " 16" and 20" radius so far. Made disks
with
various edges too to play with. Fun.....
philk

"Wild_Bill" wrote in
message
...
The web of the point of typical twist drills
doesn't cut.. instead, it rubs under pressure to
displace the metal (all the way through the
workpiece or to the bottom of a blind hole).
That's exactly what needs to be avoided with
work-hardening materials.

Split-point drills begin cutting as soon as
contact is made, and continue cutting until the
drill is stopped/withdrawn.

Aside from carbide drills, I believe the best
approach would be to use quality split-point
drills, as Phil recommended trying, with a good
cutting lubricant.. while following the
"uninterrupted feed" method which is critical
when cutting work-hardening materials, IME.

If the holes need deburred after drilling, a
small mounted stone in a Dremel/rotary tool will
be quick, although a larger drill or countersink
will also do the trick (even if just turned with
fingers), just so the turning stops when the
pressure is released.

--
WB
.........


"Tim Wescott" wrote in
message
...
I may have asked this before, but I'm slow:

I have some 304 sheet. I use it to make
control-line model airplane
handles. Each handle needs to have about 20
1/16" or .050" holes drilled
in it, in a pair of tidy lines.

This stuff breaks my regular old HSS drill
bits, and my drill hand-
sharpening mojo is pretty spotty at 1/16".

I'm using them in a drill press. The whole
process feels weird -- it
feels like there's a skin on the metal which
prevents the drill from
starting to cut unless I feed it fairly hard,
but once broken through
doesn't cause much problem. Most of the time
that I break a drill bit
it's because I'm feeding it "just a bit
harder", then SPING -- I've
broken another bit.

Is there a better drill bit to use, or have I
just doomed myself to
trouble? Is there a better flavor of
_stainless_ to use? I understand
that 304 is difficult to work with, but it's
what McMaster had in the
thickness I wanted; having experienced its
joys, however, I'm ready to
consider something else.

I think my next step is to get a dozen 1/16"
drill bits, but if there's
some magic material that'll help here, I'm
listening.

--
My liberal friends think I'm a conservative
kook.
My conservative friends think I'm a liberal
kook.
Why am I not happy that they have found common
ground?

Tim Wescott, Communications, Control, Circuits
& Software
http://www.wescottdesign.com