Can you drill ferro rods?

stingray4540

stingray4540

Joined
Mar 26, 2007
Messages
2,798
That pretty much sums it up.

If you have a ferro rod that does not have a handle or a hole in it and you want to put a lanyard on it but don't want to turn out a handle, can you drill it? If you can drill it, will any metall drill bit work or do you need something special? Also, does anyone have any experience doing this? Is it very difficult to drill since it's round?
 
Clamp it real good and start a pilot hole. Also may want to use water too, can you imagine all the sparks?!
 
Maybe you could also try to take a spring thats slightly smaller then the rod a twist it around the rod and bend some of the spring to make a loop or solder a keyring to it.


eric
 
Or get another piece of metal or wood close to the same diameter, drill through it, butt it next to your ferro rod, and "connect" them with shrink tubing.
 
Wow, those are some ingenious ideas there. I think I'll try to drill them first though and see how that goes. I just wanted to make sure it was even possible before I ruined some bits, so thanks guys.
 
I've done it several times.

Take a new and sharp drill, with a very small diameter. After that take a larger diameter. But.......keep it at low speed, and put some drops of water on it during drilling. Don't overheat and take your time!!
I've had some shavings ignite during drilling.....not fun, but you'll survive...

Good luck!

CZ
 
Heat shrink tubing is available at Radio Shack. Its used for electronic wiring. Good stuff. I have some in my PSK.

Its pretty easy to drill ferocerium. Its a soft metal. The sparks are cool too. Go slow. The most challenging part is drilling into something round.

You should have seen the sparks coming off the ferro rods I put handles off recently when I was roughing them up so the glue would stick. Neato. It was like a KMG flameshooter. Cool sound too.
 
Would it be any easier if you filed the part you're donna drill flat?

Just askin' :D
 
Hey, now that's an idea, I'll have to remember that if drilling it round starts to really get on my nerves.
 
Another thing you can do is to drill a hole into the face of a bit of wood. Then drill a hole the firesteel can fit into down the grain centering it on the first hole. Then just drill through wood and firesteel with the wood acting as a guide.
 
I drilled two holes in mine and strapped it onto my F1 zytel sheath. It need lots of water, my dust pile caught fire. Smells like :(
 
Epoxy ferro rod to piece of fatwood same length as the rod, drill and tie lanyard to wood ,then you have tinder and fire steel together at all time's.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top