a hole lot of problems

D

dean19711

Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Messages
14
after burning out a ship load of drill bits trying to drill the holes to fit the handle on my knives was wondering if anyone can give me any tips
 
sounds like you need more lube.
Describe your process and we can better help you out. what bits are you using? drill press or free-hand? Are you trying to do the holes all at once, or are you doing pilot holes? Are you drilling hardened steel, or before heat treat?

In general if you are not using any sort of cutting fluid like ezee-tap, get some and see how that goes. I'm not much of a machinist, so I don't know what are cheap alternatives, but if you do some searching on machining methods, you'll probably find some help there as well. From what I know though over-heating drill bits quickly destroys them, so getting things cooled down might be to your advantage.
 
Tempered steel is not at all a piece of cake when it comes to drilling or expanding holes. I am a relative novice at this too but have had good luck (on the few occasions that I've needed) with tungsten carbide burrs that are made for Dremel tools. These bits ain't cheap, and have an 1/8 inch shank which is a PITA, but they do work. Make sure you do not overheat the area you are drilling by using water or some such for cooling.
 
thanks for the tips I drill free hand and had some success with dremel diamond bits but think its time to invest I some tungsten carbide bits and to coll the metal down the metal I use is recycled saw blades
 
Carbide drill bits are the only way. They are expensive and very fragile. If the bit binds up, it will almost certainly break. Good luck.
 
Another option is to sandwich the blade in a vice and great the handle with a torch to near red hot and allow it to air cool and thus annealing the handle portion. The vice works as a heat sink and will prevent the heat from travelling up the blade, it works even better with some pieces of aluminum between the blade and the vice jaws. Drilling holes after that is easy.
 
You need to be using a drill press with a carbide bit. You're gonna have a hell of a time trying to get it done with a hand drill. If this is going to be something you think you're going to be doing a lot pick up a small Harbor Freight for $70 or so. If this is gonna be a one time thing take it to a local machine shop and have them drill the holes.

If you had a dremel you might be able to get it done with a carbide cutter but you'd want to take things real slow as it could get messy quick.
 
If you don't already, get yourself a good center-punch for marking your holes. it makes a surprising amount of difference to just have that little divot to start in.
 
gadgetgeek said:
If you don't already, get yourself a good center-punch for marking your holes. it makes a surprising amount of difference to just have that little divot to start in.
Click to expand...

This works good and makes for more precisely located holes. You could also use a little carbide cutter bit with a dremel and buzz out a little indention where you want the pin.
 
The last time I tried to center punch a hardened blade for drilling, I broke 2 punches. There wasn't even a scratch on the blade. That blade later tested at 60 HRc on the handle.
 
Yes, but if its too hard to mark with a center punch, its far too hard to drill with a standard drill-bit, so there is that.
 
At this point I'm gonna suggest .22 magnum through holes. Adjust hardware as needed.
 
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