Drilling operations

[Robert Alexander]

Bob this might help. I bought some of their cheap bits for some small holes I
needed to drill/mill, and I have not broke to many of them. they have them in the
sizes you are looking for.
http://www.wttool.com/category-exec/...lls_WT_Import_

[Guy Mathews]

Don't use regular drill bits in a router, very dangerous. As was mentioned, route the holes. You can peck drill the smallest one with a same size router bit, and spiral route the larger ones with the same bit.

If you have a porter cable router, you can get 1/8" collets and 1/8" shank small drill bits that will work in the router from www.precisebits.com

Gary,

Not trying to contradict you but I use both metal drill bits and brad point bits on my CAMaster and formally on my ShopBot on a regular basis.

Spindle speed of around 3K and I use the G83 Peck Drilling cycle.

Works great and I have yet to break a bit.

Guy

[Nicholas Bukky]

I used mine with this pocket jig to drill holes in these hearts to put them on stands. .5 drill probably should have turned the rpm down a little but it worked fine.

Nick

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

Guy, I was talking about 10K rpm or more. 3K rpm should be fine, as most drill presses can spin that fast. I think the boring head on our big router at work spins around 4K.

But most people don't have spindles that can spin that slow. Would you use the same bits at 15K?

[Nicholas Bukky]

Gerry I spun that .5 bit at 12000 and I could have turned it down but didn't think of it. The holes turned out fine and it took about 7sec to drill not including putting the part in the jig.

Next time I WILL turn my rpms down hehe.

Nick

[Guy Mathews]

Gerry

Yeah, when I first started doing it. When I first started doing CNC on wood there was no one to ask. My experience is just that. Actual experience. I know of a few people on these forums that run around to different forums looking for answers and then try to pass them off as their own. I am not saying you are one of them so do not get offended. What I am saying is that when someone says it can't or shouldn't be done, I will have either already done it or will do it just to prove them wrong.

Now back to drilling at high RPMS. The first time I tried it was a heck of an achievement. Our Senior Borer in our Frame Division said "It can't be done." He was looking to protect his job. I did it because he said it couldn't be done. Thereafter, he started working very closely with me because he saw the potential of the CNC. The bits would drill fine but would burn after about 100 holes. I then slowed to about 10K and got longer life out of the bits. When I finally learned about Peck Drilling it was game on. For nearly a year I would bore chair legs with a 3/8 Brad Point on our machine at 10K because that was the slowest speed for the spindles. The peck stroke was .1875 per peck with a hole depth of 1.125 inches.

A recent project found us at our CAMmaster drilling holes with a 13/16 inch metal bit in wood. Worked great. Spindle speed there was 8K with .25 peck stroke on a 1 inch hole. No burning and the drilling was once again fine.

I have milled everything from poker chips to complete carved bedroom sets. Electric Fiddle/Violin bodies and gun stocks are my latest jobs. I also just recently secured another customer from Kentuckey and one from Georgia. They both found me through my Youtube Video.

BTW when I did the Owl Carving that is up on Youtube, the good folks at Polhemus had told me that I would not be able to achieve that level of detail with their scanner. They also told me that the scaner will not work for scanning metal. I have done them both. I still laugh at those statements!

Guy

[james mcgrew]

guy as usual and with all due respect, (that is lawyer for dumb down) that gerry gradinski is the last person to attempt to pass off anothers info on the web. in my experience he is one to be listened to.

for like you i know who he is and what he does. while i agree most drill bits are not made to spin (in specification and most here are not purchasing high tollerance bits) 500 - 2000 rpm in a drill press at best. there are lots of work arounds that are possible as i have tried my share and you have many times pointed out to me. but have broke my share of bits and had one slung into a wall along with setting the cnc on fire i am more apt to err on the side of caution. the other side of this is many here have the porter cables and these will not spin less than 16000 rpm

if i had to compare the level of experience when compared to ger you and i would be sitting in the drive thru.

ps i will say this, the other day i had the oppurtunity to see up close the quality levels of .stl surfaces in modeling, an area i am learning more about! and the quality of the surface on the chess players you did for me was better than what i was being shown!! excellent work is still paying off

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

Thanks, Jim. While I've been doing CNC for a long time, as Guy will tell you, you never stop learning. I just wish I could do cool stuff like Guy. Just need to figure out how to get the Morbidelli to not choke on a mere 100,000 lines of code. Although it looks like at my new job I may get to start CNCing some very cool entrance doors. Spent today figuring out how to cut custom profiled arched raised panels at 750ipm.

To be honest, I've never actually tried using drill bits in a router. But on a few forums, I've seen an awful lot of lost fingers, router cuts, and other injuries in the last few months. And I've been in this industry long enough to know what's potentially unsafe. Just trying to save some fingers.

[Tony Dentino]

I just drilled 400 holes using a #47 drill and a split bushing adapter with no problems; BUT listening to Gerry's advice I left the room during the drilling operation.

[james mcgrew]

good thinking, all it will take is a bit out of balance and it will become schrapnel, now we can think not me not now.

reminds me of a liquor store in Chas SC, got robbed a lot, so he put a sign on the back door, "4 of 7 nights there is a man behind this door with a shotgun, you pick which night" !

took a year or so but he finally got him one!!

jim