Gazzas Posted July 16, 2021 Share Posted July 16, 2021 HI, I'm considering purchasing a drill press. My main question is, will it be possible to drill into a stainless steel tube with thin walls with a .4MM HSS bit, or a .35MM carbide bit? I've broken a lot of these bits with a pin vice in styrene. So, I'm just wondering how these kind of materials are worked. Thanks for your thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woody V Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 The issue drilling through tubing is getting the drill bit perfectly square to the tube, otherwise it "wanders", bends and breaks. My suggestion would be to get a good drill press vise to hold the tubing and a center drill to get the hole started. Another thing to consider is the quality of the drill press - cheaper ones have a lot of runout. VISE CENTER DRILL Gazzas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woody V Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 It just dawned on me that you're probably drilling a very small diameter tube, so instead of all that I originally posted, try chucking the drill bit with just a very short portion showing, just enough to go all the way through plus a little. This should eliminate the bending/breaking to some degree. Generally speaking, drilling tubing is problematic. D.B. Andrus and Gazzas 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rainer Hoffmann Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 (edited) I have had (limited) success doing it the other way round. I chuck the tube into my power drill and the drill bit in a pin vise (and Woody's tip is very good). With one hand I press the power drill on a flat surface and hand helding the pin vise I carefully try to drill then. This way the drill bit tends to center itself and it doesn't break as easily. But break it will ... eventually. Another edit: Fairly high RPM of the power drill (try different settings) and very little pressure on the drill bit helps a lot. Takes ages though to get a few Millimeters deep. Cheers Rainer Edited July 18, 2021 by Rainer Hoffmann Forgot half a sentence ... Gazzas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woody V Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 I'm assuming that you want to drill a hole trough the tube, not enlarge the inside diameter of the tube. If you want to enlarge the diameter of the tube you should use a reamer and lots of cutting oil. Gazzas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rainer Hoffmann Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 1 hour ago, Archer Fine Transfers said: I'm assuming that you want to drill a hole trough the tube, not enlarge the inside diameter of the tube. If you want to enlarge the diameter of the tube you should use a reamer and lots of cutting oil. Ah, after rereading Gazza's original post I think you are right, that's what he want's to do. And agreed, a reamer would be great for enlarging the inside diameter of a tube, but alas, I don't have reamers ... Cheers Rainer Madelf75 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madelf75 Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 the one thing you need to remember is when using a drill press is having the right speed for your drill bit ,When i was working as a Machinist we had a formula that we worked with was 4Xcutting feed divide by diameter which I always used 75 divided by the size of my drill bit say 1/4 which is .250= 300 Gazzas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzas Posted July 21, 2021 Author Share Posted July 21, 2021 On 7/18/2021 at 11:05 PM, Archer Fine Transfers said: I'm assuming that you want to drill a hole trough the tube, not enlarge the inside diameter of the tube. If you want to enlarge the diameter of the tube you should use a reamer and lots of cutting oil. On 7/19/2021 at 12:06 AM, Rainer Hoffmann said: Ah, after rereading Gazza's original post I think you are right, that's what he want's to do. And agreed, a reamer would be great for enlarging the inside diameter of a tube, but alas, I don't have reamers ... Cheers Rainer Hmmm.... I replied to you both yesterday and it's gone. Anyway... I'm drilling into the side of the tube. Not reaming it out. Rainer Hoffmann 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RLWP Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 On 7/16/2021 at 9:09 AM, Gazzas said: HI, I'm considering purchasing a drill press. My main question is, will it be possible to drill into a stainless steel tube with thin walls with a .4MM HSS bit, or a .35MM carbide bit? I've broken a lot of these bits with a pin vice in styrene. So, I'm just wondering how these kind of materials are worked. Thanks for your thoughts. Carbide bits seem to be quite brittle, I get on better with HSS ones Richard Gazzas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzas Posted July 21, 2021 Author Share Posted July 21, 2021 9 minutes ago, RLWP said: Carbide bits seem to be quite brittle, I get on better with HSS ones Richard Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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