Originally Posted by
rick3
After doing LOTS of searching about drilling stainless steel, I found these statements:
"just apply alot of pressure and pulse the drill so it never gets hot if stainless gets hot it will crystalize and you will never drill a hole in it."
I think this is probably what happened with the first set of bits I tried (the steel got too hot and crystalized), and that ruined my chances for drilling with the other bits.
"I Needed to drill some stainless steel, hi quality restaurant grade. So before I burned a dozen bits, called a friend that does iron work. Neat tip. Take a center punch, and grind it on 4 points, like a pyramid, then make the starting point. The bit will cut better then just the normal "dimple" made be a normal center punch. If the bit starts to run dry (as in not cut), dimple again with the punch. I tried it tonight and drilled 24 holes in a 3/16 plate with the same bit with out sharpening once. This was with a hand drill, not a drill press."
This is what I'm going to try next.
If that doesn't work...well, I don't want to pay someone $30 to drill a couple of holes, so I'll probably just forget the whole thing...I'm just out the cost of the G3 mag ($8 if I remember right), and the cost of the various drill bits (maybe another $40), which I can probably use for drilling other materials, just not steel...
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