Help! What am I doing wrong?!!

K

K-Dog

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I have a cheap Frost Cutlery knife laying around and decided to drill a hole for a lanyard. It started fine but then it stopped. The last bit I used was a titanium one. Why it it so hard to drill a hole in the stainless steel? What am I doing wrong?
 
K-Dog said:
I have a cheap Frost Cutlery knife laying around and decided to drill a hole for a lanyard. It started fine but then it stopped. The last bit I used was a titanium one. Why it it so hard to drill a hole in the stainless steel? What am I doing wrong?
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try a carbide bit.
 
If it gets hot while drilling, you migh have work hardened it.
As mentioned go with a carbide drill bit and keep the area cool with water while drilling.
Good Luck.
 
drilling hardened steel can be difficult.

i suggest a carbide bit as mentioned.

keep the area cool. water was advised, i use mineral oil.

i just dip the bit in oil before i start each hole, and it works fine. (but i drill annealed steel)
 
use a drill designed for cutting hardened steel0 carbide bits are best, lubricate the bit with mineral oil too, this should reduce the friction a bit and stop it getting too hot.

good luck! drilling hardened steel is a real pain in the ass
 
All stainless steels work harden. Low working speeds, with cutting oil, and frequent pecks, are the tricks. Once you break below the hardened surface layer, keep the pressure up so the bit spits up a single piece of steel. If you let the bit rub against it the steel will work harden once again right in that spot.

Carbides or Cobalt are about the only ways right now. If you're good at measuring, you may wanna try from the other side, where it isn't hardened yet.
 
Does the abrasion of an edge against the sharpening stone work-harden it? If so, maybe that would give some much higher hardness numbers for the edge than the rest of the blade, and would also explain why some folks get a lot of chipping on their blades, assuming that work hardening can also lead to some brittleness.

Or maybe you have to really work that steel, like with a hot drill bit, to work harden it. I don't know. Of course, that's why I'm asking.
 
DRider said:
Does the abrasion of an edge against the sharpening stone work-harden it? If so, maybe that would give some much higher hardness numbers for the edge than the rest of the blade, and would also explain why some folks get a lot of chipping on their blades, assuming that work hardening can also lead to some brittleness.

Or maybe you have to really work that steel, like with a hot drill bit, to work harden it. I don't know. Of course, that's why I'm asking.
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Combo of heat and pressure.
 
I'm glad I finally saw Cobalt mentioned above.

As a worker in the Lowe's tool area, we have a table chart with drill bits and desired drilling material. Cobalt is the one choice that we have for hardened and stainless steels. Pretty cheap bits too, ranging from $2.00 to $10.00 depending on how big a hole you want. For better speed, drop the drill and grab a dremel. With a dremel you can drill a lot faster as long as you are only using 1/8" or less (dremel doesn't get bigger than that as far as I know).

Some tap magic or any old oil will do the trick. Personally I use 3-in-1 for everything, even sharpening and it works out just fine.

I recently used diamond bits from my dremel to make a hole for a thumb stud on my Case Sodbuster and it came out fine. It took forever, but it did cut the hole that I wanted. Only afterwards did I read the "not for drilling" notice on the back of the diamond bit package. Letting the bit almost tap a few times much like a hammer drill motion will help get out a few chunks in a hurry.

Hope this helps, J.
 
You don't want to be going fast - that heat and pressure is what is hardening the steel to begin with.
 
jeep45238 said:
You don't want to be going fast - that heat and pressure is what is hardening the steel to begin with.
Click to expand...

That's true, I didn't catch that before I posted. It's like drilling a hole into glass, take your time but use just the right amount of pressure.
 
Personally, I think that in order to drill a hole, the cutting agent has to be harder than the object being drilled. If you accept that, then the best way would be to use an abrasive tool and grind a hole. How else could you put a hole in these 'super steels'?
 
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