I was checking to see if anyone has some experience on drilling holes in cutting edges. I am looking at cutting them with a Mag. drill , holes are 13/16" in 1" and 1 1/8" thick new edges. I have tryed with cobalt and it does absolutely nothing other than removing the paint. I am probably wrong - but - i thought cobalt was the toughest to use??? Thanks for any information
Hi Swamp rat, That sounds like a lota drilling, i think you should weld on or burn some holes in. sam.
Carbide (masonry) is harder, and you can sharpen them to drill steel, but it's not fun... Maybe once you get through the surface, the cobalt will drill faster? If cobalt doesn't do it, you may be out of luck.
I'm pretty sure that your chances of being able to drill those holes with anything are going to range from slim to none. I believe that you might as well break out the blue knife and start poking holes with that.
Yair . . . . For all practical purposes I believe cutting edges are not drillable. They do blow very nicely though and a good operator can cut precise holes with a torch. Cheers
they make special drill bits for mag drills, i cant think of the name right now but they'll drill through no problem. but carbide is the toughest drill bit, you can buy them from places like fastenal. they look like regular drill bits but a 1/4 inch bit is like $30 a 1 inch bit is probably near $200 but itll drill through no problem, i use them to drill through broken off ez outs and taps that you cant get out and it drills like your drilling through butter.
I think you are looking for an annular bit. This is made for hard metal and a mag drill.
Another thing you might want to get for that size hole in a hole cutting drill bit designed for metal. They look like a super heavy duty version of a carpenters hole saw. Carbide tipped and everything. Milwakee sells them for their mag drills. Instead of drilling the whole hole it cuts the edges out and is centered by a pin in the middle riding in a center punch mark. Ok, I found the name of it, another option is a cole drill. They are hand cranked, and have variable tip pressure, and alot of it. http://rustyiron.com/Articles/drillingholes,co.html The goal is high tip pressure, and slow speed. Heat is your enemy. An old retired fabricator told me of the tool and spoke very highly of it.
thanks for all the reply's , i have a carbide ordered and will be here next week. If this fails i guess its time to cut it , i have a Koike hand torch with powered circle cutter and looks like it will have to come to my rescue. The smallest i've cut with it has been 1" , but time to shrink em up a little. Stumpjumper - that is a amazing drill you showed - gonna do some looking to see if anyone still makes one. Its like a portable manuel wall drill from the old days, would come in very handy on occasions. Thanks
you would be better off getting them water jet cut. Drilling a cutting edge with any sort of tool is a fools errand
Annular cutter
Annular bits are what was tryed - Jantzy is sending a Carbide to try , the R&D rep. said it should cut it with no issues. Should be here wed. of next week.
Ya gotta aneal each point where you are going drill or broach cut by heating just that point with torch until its near red hot, then go have a coffee (or beer) while it all cools down naturally (no quenching with liquids). You will then have sofened those spots in the quenched and tempered steel. Its like when a workshop burns down, all the handtools in it are as much use as ash trays on motorcycles because the heat has anealed them
Swamp rat; Have a look a youtube videos called "Drilling a square hole", it's Amazing (i dont know how to bring the video across sorry) Leroy
I think its ok, Drilling a square Hole, Leroy http://youtu.be/ALiqAXiTQBg
This is the way to do it I've drilled several cutting edges on front end loaders, converting from Doosan cutting edge to CAT pattern edges Pre drill one hole at roughly 5mm, then 10mm then the size you require. Use plenty of cutting lube, when I say plenty you need to keep it lubricated at all times so needs to be dripping on the floor. Keep constant pressure. And lastly learn how to sharpen your drill because you'll have to sharpen it nearly every hole The other option is a broach bit, I've seen both ways done and the broach bit is definitely faster
I have to wonder a little bit about this question. This is about drilling holes in a cutting edge , not the bucket or blade that the cutting edge attaches to? I've never drilled holes in a cutting edge, I've drilled new holes in buckets and blades to fit different cutting edges. A Hougen magnetic base drill and Rota-broach cutter zips right through bucket steel.
titanium nitride bits work better than carbide on cutting edges. but whatever bit you use, drown it with coolant/lubricant.
The anealing I described softens that quenched and tempered plate only where you hold the torch, so you concentrate the heats on only the hole centres, leaving the rest unaffected. After it cools naturally, you can drill or broach cut way more easily than without anealing. Take an old chuck of Wearalloy 450 or 500 grade, with a good quality centre punch see how much you can dent it, then try again after carefuly following the anealing process I described. You will then know the difference
Nobody answered my question, oh well; so why drill new round holes in a cutting edge when there are already square countersunk coined holes in the cutting edge? Can't use flat head plow bolts in a new round hole, can you? Wouldn't you drill new holes in the machine to match all the new cutting edges, not drill each and every new cutting edge for the old holes in the machine?
Using edges or Q & T plate that were not made for what your fitting them to, you sometimes need to hole them because using existing holes will not position the edge where you want or not provide enough strength and support for the application. Not all ground engaging hardware is fixed with plow bolts. I`ve seen many scraper router plates and backhoe bucket side cutters fixed with hex head bolts
Mactractor is right. Ive drilled 400 plate & the ONLY way to drill it is by preheating first then let it normalize. We,ve tried using a rota broach mag drill & without preheating it would peel the teeth off the rota broach bit...After preheating orange we would just use a regular titanium drill bit & a Milwaukee mag drill & lots of lube & the bit would cut no problem.The good thing is you'd be preheating & drilling in the middle of the edge so you wont lose the hardness at the actual cutting edge. Like I said, Mac sounds like hes done this before,as he is right.
Drilling Hardox 450. Drilling cutting edge .
Sorry for taking so long to reply back. I received the carbide annular cutters from Jantzy and tryed one this morning - worked like a charm. The reason for cutting new holes - i sold my Miskin pull pans , but still have many New edges left , all my John Deere pull pans use a different bolt pattern as well as size bolt. To much money sitting around to not use them. I also didnt want to drill extra holes in the pan and possibly weaken it / with 500 hp pulling it , its hard enough keeping them together and not pulling them to peices. I will use standard bolts with these edges due to no way or need to cut holes for carriage heads. It will be a little more time consuming to install with hex heads , but once they are used up its back to original ones agian, they will be gr # 8 and i welded a peice of flat bar in front of the bolt to keep the heads from wearing off. Thanks for all the input to solving this , it cost a couple bits but atleast they r done. TOM V - thanks for helping and your time as well - i and my machine shop still dont understand why your cutters would not work , they would get about 1/32" into the plate and stop cutting. The Carbide did very good tho. thanks.
Mac, thank you for the answer. I'm still learning things!
Swamp Rat: I have successfully installed a lot of carriage bolts in round holes. I grind the bolt shoulders down, but leave enough on for a good grip and then I pound them into the hole. Use a good impact wrench and pound on them as they go in.
Tinkerer - that sounds like a good thing to try , i am gonna try to put one set on this weekend. Just got in the 18v lithium - ion 1/2" Snap-On impact , gonna be a good time to give it a test.