Fred wrote:
Thanks for all the responses.

My hand drill was not in reverse, I'm sure of that but I could be wrong.

No it didn't come with a protective cap.

I could have used a twist bit but I like to have a smooth hole since it will
be exposed for viewing. I don't think I'll do this again with the Forstner
bit.

Laminate is tough about 40x harder than hardwood but its a thin very layer
and I though I could cut through it like my hole saw. Not!

Doh for Costco? Actually Costco has some good tools like Porter Cable,
Hitachi, Makita and Milwaukee. They also have not so good tools like B&D,
Skil and now you could add Mastergrip to that list.

Ok, this morning I use a larger size bid (1") on the drill press on wood and
it drilled ok. I put the same bit that was on the hand drill yesterday to
the drill press and it drilled ok too on laminate although its I had to put
more pressure on the handle than with the 1" bid on wood. I also use the
next size up, 3/8", on laminate and it also required more force than on
wood.

The bid used on wood has no visible ware sign on the Titanium but the new
drill bit used on laminate, the Titanium coating on the leading edges were
gone. I'll use this set on wood only - lesson learned.


Being a natural born skeptic, I thought I was on
to a hoax here. So I went out to the shop (garage)
put a 3/8" Forstner bit from HD in the drill press
and picked up a piece of laminate that was remnant
from the flooring job I had done earlier this year.

Results-- drilled right through with a perfect
hole. Not wanting to stick my foot too far in my
mouth, I took the bit out and put it in my trusty
old Sears 3/8" drill. It didn't want to bite in,
so I pushed really hard and it started through but
it was still slow all the way through and I weaved
a bit to get it through. As a result the hole
wasn't round, but it took less than 1 minute also.

So, I', with you Fred. The bits are ok with a
drill press but are lousy for laminate with a hand
(portable) drill.