making a hole in 01 tool steel

[revhard05]

i tryied to drill a whole in my blade for a lanyard and it didnt have any of it. Fast slow, medium nothing worked. any suggestions?

 

[Rusty McDonald]

Is it already heat treated or hardened? O1 when annealed drills quite easy.

 

[Bigfattyt]

Is the steel heat treated? If so, you may need harder bits. Carbide will drill through even hardened tool steel.

If the knife is not finished, you can aneal the blade by reheating it to critical and letting it cool slower (ie no quench to harden it back up) then re-heat treat. It very well may be worth it to you to just go get a harder bit, than go through all that.

Coolant/lube also helps cut steel when drilling.

 

[Will Leavitt]

I don't work O1 but doesn't it tend to air harden if you're not careful? not a full air harden but O1 get's pretty hard if you don't do an anneal before you work it. Not sure but think I remember that.

 

[Cliff Davis]

As slow as possible! I usually drill at 310 rpm. Start with a small diameter bit and increase no larger than 1/8th of an inch in size each step, until you reach the final dimension. If you can step up 1/16th of an inch each time, even better.

 

[sunshadow]

Lemmee guess, you already HT'd it, or you have been forging it.

O-1 if cooled from austenizing slowly forms little flat carbides that will be pretty much undrillable. You would need to either spherodize anneal, or use either a diamond dill, or one of the straight flute drillbits Tracey Mickley sells for drilling hardened steel. The times I've gotten in that pickle I've used diamond core drills with success, I bought a straight flute drill from tracey, but I haven't needed it yet.

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[Troop]

Anneal it in vermiculite, then use cobalt bits at slow speed. No problem.:thumbup:
- Mitch

 

[Tinbasher]

Anneal it in vermiculite, then use cobalt bits at slow speed. No problem.:thumbup:
- Mitch

What he said.

I used dry sand today and it worked ok but not as soft as it would be using vermiculite.

Richard

 

[R.C.Reichert]

I have never had a problem with drilling O1, but I have been having a hard time drilling through the "annealed" 1095 that I got. Seems like all that works is masonry bits to drill it oddly enough. Anyone else have that problem?

 

[sunshadow]

I have never had a problem with drilling O1, but I have been having a hard time drilling through the "annealed" 1095 that I got. Seems like all that works is masonry bits to drill it oddly enough. Anyone else have that problem?

You are hitting the wonderful flat carbides sandwiched between microlayers of soft iron called pearlite. Do a spherodize anneal and you should be alright

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