Last evening I dug out an old gate that came with my rural property
from my scrap pile. I planned to take this thing to the recycler
several times but never did. Last evening I had a pony break his
fence, and it was too late to buy anything. It turned out this old
gate was made to fit the situation. The only problem is that one end
did not have a hole drilled into it to run a wire thru it so I could
wire it to the post. This homemade gate is made out of some sort of
extremely hard angle iron. I'm thinking it might be old bed frame
iron. I had to drill that 1/4" hole, and ran my battery powered drill
battery dead and barely left an indent in the 1/8 inch thick steel. I
got my plug in drill and I must have run it for 15 minutes and had
only penetrated the steel about 1/32 of an inch. The bit looked sharp
when I started, but was dull by that time. I got another used bit (of
unknown quality). That one turned bright orange and the end of it
melted. Frustrated, and not having another bit that size, I grabbed a
5/16 carbide tipped bit intended to drill concrete. In less than a
minute I went thru the steel with little effort. I never thought that
concrete bits worked on metals (steel / iron), but it worked great and
did not show any dullness after drilling thru this extremely hard
steel. Has anyone else used these bits on steel?

By the way, the gate worked great. Its only a temporary fix, but I'll
keep this gate now. Now I know why farmers keep everything. One
never knows when a piece of junk will come in handy.

Alvin

On 2 Oct, 05:14, wrote:
Last evening I dug out an old gate that came with my rural property
from my scrap pile. I planned to take this thing to the recycler
several times but never did. Last evening I had a pony break his
fence, and it was too late to buy anything. It turned out this old
gate was made to fit the situation. The only problem is that one end
did not have a hole drilled into it to run a wire thru it so I could
wire it to the post. This homemade gate is made out of some sort of
extremely hard angle iron. I'm thinking it might be old bed frame
iron. I had to drill that 1/4" hole, and ran my battery powered drill
battery dead and barely left an indent in the 1/8 inch thick steel. I
got my plug in drill and I must have run it for 15 minutes and had
only penetrated the steel about 1/32 of an inch. The bit looked sharp
when I started, but was dull by that time. I got another used bit (of
unknown quality). That one turned bright orange and the end of it
melted. Frustrated, and not having another bit that size, I grabbed a
5/16 carbide tipped bit intended to drill concrete. In less than a
minute I went thru the steel with little effort. I never thought that
concrete bits worked on metals (steel / iron), but it worked great and
did not show any dullness after drilling thru this extremely hard
steel. Has anyone else used these bits on steel?

By the way, the gate worked great. Its only a temporary fix, but I'll
keep this gate now. Now I know why farmers keep everything. One
never knows when a piece of junk will come in handy.

Alvin

-- Its only a temporary fix

You left off the other half of that common home repair statement:

It's only temporary...unless it works.

On Oct 2, 5:14 am, wrote:
Last evening I dug out an old gate that came with my rural property
from my scrap pile. I planned to take this thing to the recycler
several times but never did. Last evening I had a pony break his
fence, and it was too late to buy anything. It turned out this old
gate was made to fit the situation. The only problem is that one end
did not have a hole drilled into it to run a wire thru it so I could
wire it to the post. This homemade gate is made out of some sort of
extremely hard angle iron. I'm thinking it might be old bed frame
iron. I had to drill that 1/4" hole, and ran my battery powered drill
battery dead and barely left an indent in the 1/8 inch thick steel. I
got my plug in drill and I must have run it for 15 minutes and had
only penetrated the steel about 1/32 of an inch. The bit looked sharp
when I started, but was dull by that time. I got another used bit (of
unknown quality). That one turned bright orange and the end of it
melted. Frustrated, and not having another bit that size, I grabbed a
5/16 carbide tipped bit intended to drill concrete. In less than a
minute I went thru the steel with little effort. I never thought that
concrete bits worked on metals (steel / iron), but it worked great and
did not show any dullness after drilling thru this extremely hard
steel. Has anyone else used these bits on steel?

By the way, the gate worked great. Its only a temporary fix, but I'll
keep this gate now. Now I know why farmers keep everything. One
never knows when a piece of junk will come in handy.

Alvin

Masonry bits are pretty damn good substitutions in the field provided
that aren't rounded over from using them on actual masonry
As for some of the real hard angle iron out there, much of it was re-
rolled from slit up sections of railroad rail and the top and bottom
being seperated from the web and rolled into angles. I used a piece to
make a timber framers bruzz that takes a nice edge and holds it.

Has anyone else used these bits on steel?

I have heard it doesn't work, but your experience obviously shows it does.

From your description you were drilling the steel dry? That isn't going to
work.

According to Toller :

Has anyone else used these bits on steel?

I have heard it doesn't work, but your experience obviously shows it does.

From your description you were drilling the steel dry? That isn't going to
work.

Carbide drills once they're used, have fairly rounded tips - they "cut"
largely by bashing their way thru masonry. Which is why hammer
drills make masonry drilling so much easier, but does almost nothing
for wood or metal.

Mild steel drilling is with sharp-edged tools - ordinary twist
drills with proper edges and relief angles. In a drill press with
a good bit, you see these nice continuous swirls of metal swarf
coming off the drill bit. A carbide tripped drill ain't sharp.

_However_, particularly with hardened steel (which can't really be "cut"
at all with edged tools), you can cut with a fairly dull bit - by
melting your way through. Problem being that the drill bit tip has to
stay hard while the stuff you're drilling gets soft. With an ordinary
drill bit, the tip just deforms and you don't get anywhere, and you
feel like you're trying to push cooked spaghetti thru a cinder block.

Carbide has a considerably higher melting/softening point than steel.
So, in some cases a carbide drill bit would work fine. If you use
a lubricant or coolant, this won't work at all, because the work
simply won't get hot enough.

There are special drill bits specifically designed to get hot and melt
their way through hardened steel. Had a shop instructor demonstrate one
once - piece of hardened steel could not be scratched by a file or a
normal cutting tool. With the special bit in a hand drill, he got
through it in seconds. Threw droplets of molten steel, sparks, and the
hole glowed for a few minutes... Eye protection _definately_ advised.
--
Chris Lewis,

Age and Treachery will Triumph over Youth and Skill
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.

wrote:
Last evening I dug out an old gate that came with my rural property
snip...

minute I went thru the steel with little effort. I never thought that
concrete bits worked on metals (steel / iron), but it worked great and
did not show any dullness after drilling thru this extremely hard
steel. Has anyone else used these bits on steel?
snip...
Alvin

Way back when, I had a company that serviced video games, pinball
machines, and the like. Breaking into these when someone at the game
room lost the keys was pretty easy and a standard drill bit would punch
the locks on any of them in 15 seconds flat. The only real problem came
when I had to break into a change machine somewhere and this invariably
happened a couple of times a year with one customer or another. These
machines had serious locks on them, usually made my Medeco IIRC, and
these were made with hardened steel bars trough the bodies at odd angles
and depths for the purpose of jamming and breaking drill bits. I found
that it was wise to keep a half-dozen fresh masonry bits in the toolbox
to open these. In the event that one did catch and snap the money
involved was trivial. Even with the carbide bits it would still take
5-10 minutes to get the machine open but at least it was doable.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com

In article ,
(Chris Lewis) wrote:

According to Toller :

Has anyone else used these bits on steel?

I have heard it doesn't work, but your experience obviously shows it does.

From your description you were drilling the steel dry? That isn't going to
work.

Carbide drills once they're used, have fairly rounded tips - they "cut"
largely by bashing their way thru masonry. Which is why hammer
drills make masonry drilling so much easier, but does almost nothing
for wood or metal.

Mild steel drilling is with sharp-edged tools - ordinary twist
drills with proper edges and relief angles. In a drill press with
a good bit, you see these nice continuous swirls of metal swarf
coming off the drill bit. A carbide tripped drill ain't sharp.

_However_, particularly with hardened steel (which can't really be "cut"
at all with edged tools), you can cut with a fairly dull bit - by
melting your way through. Problem being that the drill bit tip has to
stay hard while the stuff you're drilling gets soft. With an ordinary
drill bit, the tip just deforms and you don't get anywhere, and you
feel like you're trying to push cooked spaghetti thru a cinder block.

Carbide has a considerably higher melting/softening point than steel.
So, in some cases a carbide drill bit would work fine. If you use
a lubricant or coolant, this won't work at all, because the work
simply won't get hot enough.

There are special drill bits specifically designed to get hot and melt
their way through hardened steel. Had a shop instructor demonstrate one
once - piece of hardened steel could not be scratched by a file or a
normal cutting tool. With the special bit in a hand drill, he got
through it in seconds. Threw droplets of molten steel, sparks, and the
hole glowed for a few minutes... Eye protection _definately_ advised.

I'm going to disagree with you here, to some extent. "A carbide tipped
drill ain't sharp?" Um, no correlation there. A drill is either sharp or
it's not, has nothing to do with whether it's carbide. And carbide
cutters are certainly appropriate for cutting steel, particularly
hardened steel, where "high speed steel" drills certainly won't make a
dent. Masonry bits? No comment.

Drilling is like all machining -- "Speeds and Feeds" are crucial. It's
easy to try to drill steel at too high of a speed, and too low of a
feed. Then the tool gets dull, and hot, and what's worse is the steel
gets hot and "work hardened." Turns mild steel into hardened steel, and
then for damn sure you're going to need carbide to cut it.

I've never heard of a "special drill bit designed to get hot and melt
through steel." Citation, other than your shop teacher? Link?

Smitty Two writes:

I'm going to disagree with you here, to some extent. "A carbide tipped
drill ain't sharp?" Um, no correlation there. A drill is either sharp or
it's not, has nothing to do with whether it's carbide.

I understood Chris to be talking about carbide-tipped masonry bits - see
the "concrete drill" in the Subject line up above. Those particular
carbide bits are indeed not sharp, even when new.

And carbide
cutters are certainly appropriate for cutting steel, particularly
hardened steel, where "high speed steel" drills certainly won't make a
dent.

While you're talking about carbide drills intended for use in steel and
other tough substances. Different thing entirely.

Masonry bits? No comment.

Yeah, but that's what the thread started out discussing.

Dave

In article ,
(Dave Martindale) wrote:

Smitty Two writes:

I'm going to disagree with you here, to some extent. "A carbide tipped
drill ain't sharp?" Um, no correlation there. A drill is either sharp or
it's not, has nothing to do with whether it's carbide.

I understood Chris to be talking about carbide-tipped masonry bits - see
the "concrete drill" in the Subject line up above. Those particular
carbide bits are indeed not sharp, even when new.

And carbide
cutters are certainly appropriate for cutting steel, particularly
hardened steel, where "high speed steel" drills certainly won't make a
dent.

While you're talking about carbide drills intended for use in steel and
other tough substances. Different thing entirely.

Masonry bits? No comment.

Yeah, but that's what the thread started out discussing.

Dave

Yes, I'm fairly good with comprehension, and I've followed the thread.
We may have different interpretations of Chris' remarks, but my concerns
with the inaccuracies of his statements stand.

According to Smitty Two :
In article ,
(Dave Martindale) wrote:

Smitty Two writes:

I'm going to disagree with you here, to some extent. "A carbide tipped
drill ain't sharp?" Um, no correlation there. A drill is either sharp or
it's not, has nothing to do with whether it's carbide.

I understood Chris to be talking about carbide-tipped masonry bits - see
the "concrete drill" in the Subject line up above. Those particular
carbide bits are indeed not sharp, even when new.

And carbide
cutters are certainly appropriate for cutting steel, particularly
hardened steel, where "high speed steel" drills certainly won't make a
dent.

While you're talking about carbide drills intended for use in steel and
other tough substances. Different thing entirely.

Masonry bits? No comment.

Yeah, but that's what the thread started out discussing.

Dave

Yes, I'm fairly good with comprehension, and I've followed the thread.
We may have different interpretations of Chris' remarks, but my concerns
with the inaccuracies of his statements stand.

It's not inaccurate if you assume I was referring to masonry bits.
Which I was, but I should have been clearer. Clearly carbide-tipped
cutting tools for metal are an entirely different thing.

As for the "designed to drill by melting" bit - it was about 12
years ago, but it wasn't just the instructor telling us about them,
he demonstrated one. Though, my google-foo isn't quite up to
definitively finding them on the web. This may be substantially it:

http://www.bamanufacturing.com/sp_series.html

A drill bit without a spiral flute... Clearly it's not generating
swarf, because it wouldn't be able to eject it.
--
Chris Lewis,

Age and Treachery will Triumph over Youth and Skill
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.

In article ,
(Chris Lewis) wrote:

According to Smitty Two :
In article ,
(Dave Martindale) wrote:

Smitty Two writes:

I'm going to disagree with you here, to some extent. "A carbide tipped
drill ain't sharp?" Um, no correlation there. A drill is either sharp or
it's not, has nothing to do with whether it's carbide.

I understood Chris to be talking about carbide-tipped masonry bits - see
the "concrete drill" in the Subject line up above. Those particular
carbide bits are indeed not sharp, even when new.

And carbide
cutters are certainly appropriate for cutting steel, particularly
hardened steel, where "high speed steel" drills certainly won't make a
dent.

While you're talking about carbide drills intended for use in steel and
other tough substances. Different thing entirely.

Masonry bits? No comment.

Yeah, but that's what the thread started out discussing.

Dave

Yes, I'm fairly good with comprehension, and I've followed the thread.
We may have different interpretations of Chris' remarks, but my concerns
with the inaccuracies of his statements stand.

It's not inaccurate if you assume I was referring to masonry bits.
Which I was, but I should have been clearer. Clearly carbide-tipped
cutting tools for metal are an entirely different thing.

As for the "designed to drill by melting" bit - it was about 12
years ago, but it wasn't just the instructor telling us about them,
he demonstrated one. Though, my google-foo isn't quite up to
definitively finding them on the web. This may be substantially it:

http://www.bamanufacturing.com/sp_series.html

A drill bit without a spiral flute... Clearly it's not generating
swarf, because it wouldn't be able to eject it.

Fine. Still, if you meant masonry bit, you might have said masonry bit,
instead of carbide tipped bit. I realize the thread was originally about
masonry bits, but in the context of your paragraph on carbide tips, it
was far from obvious that you were still on topic there.

As far as the link, above, straight flutes do not a metal burner make,
and the drill shown in the video is clearly cutting. Poorly, but it's
cutting.

Here's one "assumption" I *am* willing to make: I'll assume that your
shop teacher was mistaken, or that you misunderstood him at the time,
because AFAIK there is no such thing as a "special drill designed to
melt through metal." The idea of using a carbide tipped drill on
hardened steel with no cutting fluid, in order to get it hot enough to
melt the steel, is preposterous.

Smitty Two wrote:
....

Here's one "assumption" I *am* willing to make: I'll assume that your
shop teacher was mistaken, or that you misunderstood him at the time,
because AFAIK there is no such thing as a "special drill designed to
melt through metal." ...

Well, one is a plasma, another uses laser, others that aren't exactly
"melting" but act similar use very high pressure water...

--

In article , dpb wrote:

Smitty Two wrote:
...

Here's one "assumption" I *am* willing to make: I'll assume that your
shop teacher was mistaken, or that you misunderstood him at the time,
because AFAIK there is no such thing as a "special drill designed to
melt through metal." ...

Well, one is a plasma, another uses laser, others that aren't exactly
"melting" but act similar use very high pressure water...

--

Those are metal cutting techniques, but they're hardly drills. Did you
actually read the post to which I'm referring?

On 4 Oct, 09:36, (Chris Lewis) wrote:
According to Smitty Two :





In article ,
(Dave Martindale) wrote:

Smitty Two writes:

I'm going to disagree with you here, to some extent. "A carbide tipped
drill ain't sharp?" Um, no correlation there. A drill is either sharp or
it's not, has nothing to do with whether it's carbide.

I understood Chris to be talking about carbide-tipped masonry bits - see
the "concrete drill" in the Subject line up above. Those particular
carbide bits are indeed not sharp, even when new.

And carbide
cutters are certainly appropriate for cutting steel, particularly
hardened steel, where "high speed steel" drills certainly won't make a
dent.

While you're talking about carbide drills intended for use in steel and
other tough substances. Different thing entirely.

Masonry bits? No comment.

Yeah, but that's what the thread started out discussing.

Dave

Yes, I'm fairly good with comprehension, and I've followed the thread.
We may have different interpretations of Chris' remarks, but my concerns
with the inaccuracies of his statements stand.

It's not inaccurate if you assume I was referring to masonry bits.
Which I was, but I should have been clearer. Clearly carbide-tipped
cutting tools for metal are an entirely different thing.

As for the "designed to drill by melting" bit - it was about 12
years ago, but it wasn't just the instructor telling us about them,
he demonstrated one. Though, my google-foo isn't quite up to
definitively finding them on the web. This may be substantially it:

http://www.bamanufacturing.com/sp_series.html

The text at the site says "Special Fluting for ... Heat Dissipation"
and "designed to...dissipate heat quickly"

Wouldn't "designed to drill by melting" and "designed to...dissipate
heat quickly" be mutually exclusive?


A drill bit without a spiral flute... Clearly it's not generating
swarf, because it wouldn't be able to eject it.
--
Chris Lewis,

Age and Treachery will Triumph over Youth and Skill
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Smitty Two wrote:
In article , dpb wrote:

Smitty Two wrote:
...

Here's one "assumption" I *am* willing to make: I'll assume that your
shop teacher was mistaken, or that you misunderstood him at the time,
because AFAIK there is no such thing as a "special drill designed to
melt through metal." ...
Well, one is a plasma, another uses laser, others that aren't exactly
"melting" but act similar use very high pressure water...

--

Those are metal cutting techniques, but they're hardly drills. Did you
actually read the post to which I'm referring?

Don't need to...I can imagine almost exactly what the instructor was
discussing...but some of the applications of those techniques are made
into drills, specifically.

--

Smitty Two writes:

Here's one "assumption" I *am* willing to make: I'll assume that your
shop teacher was mistaken, or that you misunderstood him at the time,
because AFAIK there is no such thing as a "special drill designed to
melt through metal." The idea of using a carbide tipped drill on
hardened steel with no cutting fluid, in order to get it hot enough to
melt the steel, is preposterous.

Friction is used for cutting metal in a bandsaw. Do a Google search
for "bandsaw friction cutting metal" or something similar. Here's one
hit:

http://yarchive.net/metal/friction_cutting.html

In the bandsaw, the metal being cut is continually subjected to heat
from the saw until it is removed, while the saw itself has the friction
heat distributed over the whole length of the blade, so one can get very
hot while the other stays relatively cool. I don't see how a drill bit
could avoid getting hotter than the workpiece though.

Dave

In article , dpb wrote:

Smitty Two wrote:
In article , dpb wrote:

Smitty Two wrote:
...

Here's one "assumption" I *am* willing to make: I'll assume that your
shop teacher was mistaken, or that you misunderstood him at the time,
because AFAIK there is no such thing as a "special drill designed to
melt through metal." ...
Well, one is a plasma, another uses laser, others that aren't exactly
"melting" but act similar use very high pressure water...

--

Those are metal cutting techniques, but they're hardly drills. Did you
actually read the post to which I'm referring?

Don't need to...I can imagine almost exactly what the instructor was
discussing...but some of the applications of those techniques are made
into drills, specifically.

--

Please allow me to offer a review, even though you don't think you need
to read the thread in order to participate in it in a meaningful way:

Someone said:

_However_, particularly with hardened steel (which can't really be "cut"
at all with edged tools), you can cut with a fairly dull bit - by
melting your way through. Problem being that the drill bit tip has to
stay hard while the stuff you're drilling gets soft. With an ordinary
drill bit, the tip just deforms and you don't get anywhere, and you
feel like you're trying to push cooked spaghetti thru a cinder block.

Carbide has a considerably higher melting/softening point than steel.
So, in some cases a carbide drill bit would work fine. If you use
a lubricant or coolant, this won't work at all, because the work
simply won't get hot enough.

There are special drill bits specifically designed to get hot and melt
their way through hardened steel. Had a shop instructor demonstrate one
once - piece of hardened steel could not be scratched by a file or a
normal cutting tool. With the special bit in a hand drill, he got
through it in seconds. Threw droplets of molten steel, sparks, and the
hole glowed for a few minutes... Eye protection _definately_ advised.

Now, the person who wrote the above is the one with whom you're
agreeing, is that correct? If so, I suggest you spend five or ten
minutes in a machine shop. Then come back here and espouse about how
metal is cut, and how holes are drilled. And please, offer me the
citation that the poster in question could not -- the one that shows
that special drill bit.