When you're reflooring a trailer (or truck body) the first thing to do
is grind all the rust off the top of the cross member. Don't know why,
but drilling through rust will eat the day lights out of the drill bits.
After you have the cross member clean, the flooring laid out, start
making holes and install the floor. I used to own a trucking company and
we replaced and patched floors on a regular basis. It didn't matter
whether we we installing apitong on flatbeds and lowboys or laminated
oak in vans, be prepared to sharpen or change out the drill bits
regularly. I used to buy good bits and the if we "only" used 8 or 10 to
do a floor I felt lucky. It didn't seem to matter whether we used 1/2"
Milwaukee hole shooters or CP air drill, we got about the same mileage
out of a bit.
Greg
B.B. wrote: In one of my classes we're reflooring a trailer. Lucky
me I get to
drill all the holes. #16 drill bit. 2" boards on top of steel frame
members about 1/8" thick. I'll drill the wood, clear the chips, then go
through and dill the frame. So far I've been sticking with relatively
low speed and high pressure. Is that the best way to do it, or should I
trade off for more speed/less pressure? A HSS bit will go about 40-50
holes before getting uselessly dull, but occasionally I'll strike a weld
over and old hole and that'll significantly shorten the drill's life
span.
Is 40-50 holes expected? Anything I can do about the welds short of
dumb luck?