Power Tool FAQ, & Drill-bit and Drilling FAQ

Right, so you do mean a snood, but you said NOT to wear it... duh!

Phil The uk.d-i-y FAQ is at

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Reply to
Phil Addison
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Yes. If it's loose fitting but forms a loop around the neck then it can be very dangerous near moving machinery.

Reply to
John Cartmell

Comments seem to have dried up so unless any last minute ones come in, I will elevate the testing version to the full diyfaq site in the next day or two.

The Drilling FAQ has had several additions in the last few days, and minor additions to Normal / Hammer Drills, Sander, and Mitre Saw.

See

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comments are still welcome on broken links, typos, punctuation, grammar, readability, facts, gibberish, content, style etc. ESPECIALLY if they come complete with text to paste in.

Phil phil_a (a t) big foot (stop) c om x-noarchive

Phil The uk.d-i-y FAQ is at

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Reply to
Phil Addison

should be "and"

in hole saws: "Professional hole saws blades " few too many plurals there. (in fact we don't really need the "blade" bit IMHO)

paragraph actually be in the next table where usage is discussed?

There is a spurious extra carridge return in "onto which slips a sanding belt"

In nailers and staplers: missing capital letter on start of second para.

General style sheet comment - any chance of a bit more leading between lines? The table entries are nice and easy to read, but the main body text is rather tightly line spaced. (The CSS definition for BODY seems to be the culprit, currently it has line height specified as 100% rather than "normal" (normal usually being approx 120%))

So:

BODY { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; background: white; color: black; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif }

Reply to
John Rumm

"This FAQ is not about Electric Hand-held Drills (for those look here), but is about different types of drill-bits and the actual process of drilling"

I'd remove '(for those look here)' and make 'Drills' the hyperlink instead.

I keep wondering about this:

'Drilling can be very loud and create loads of dust, so ear defenders and a mask are often essential'

Rarely I find, unless its a particularly mean job. I'd say 'sometimes essential'

IME masonry drills work fine when theyre blunt. Its only the hardest of workpieces that need a sharp one to work.

"Many metals need to be drilled at relatively low speeds in the 300 -

900 rpm range, so many standard mains drills are too fast, the result being an overheated drill-bit"

yse, I'd add: the workaround for this is to drill for 10 or 20 seconds, rest to allow cooling, repeat.

" point but a flat cutting edge and look a little like a small spade. A sharp flat bit will rapidly cut a pretty clean hole"

I've never seen that, always been messy, even with a new drill bit. I'd say: 'Flat bits make messy holes, can be unstable, and can't be used to widen existing holes. Theyre suited to drilling large holes, where other bit types get expensive.'

More cut n paste offerings:

Blunt bits:

Some new bits are so badly ground they wont work, and all bits lose their edge in time. Blunt and broken bits can be reground if you pay sufficient attention to the angles. Regrinding attachments are not needed, and not that helpful.

If you want bits for wood and plastic use only, sharper steeper angles will make them perform much better. Just dont use these to drill steel.

If you dont succeed at sharpening bits, and not everyone does, its very easy to grind a flattened point on them. They'll then work again, though the performance wont be as good as a sharp twist drill.

If you have no sharpening equipment, even an angle grinder can do it, provided you use very light pressure only, and take frequent rests to avoid overheating the bit. With practice a bit can be reground in a minute this way.

"Then there are those you find in DIY sheds. these are thin bendy spring steel things that do not quite form a complete circle, and you get a whole set of them mounted on a single wide arbour.These thin floppy ones can cut holes through sheet materials, though not much else. The arbour is always bigger than the cutter so you can drill no deeper than the exposed depth of the blade. The set comes with all the blades mounted on the arbour, but in use they should all be removed except the one required, remembering to do the securing grub-screw up tight"

They will drill twice that depth, just tackle the hole from both sides. They will also drill big lumps of wood, eg solid doors, but one must treat them as somewhat fragile. If you push, they buckle and break.

"Lubrication: Drilling in metal needs lubrication of the drill-bit, ideally with proper lubricating fluid, but failing that 3-in1 oil is a lot better than nothing. No, it won't just make the drill-bit slip!"

suggest: '3 in one or vegetable oil are'

I wont mention that margerine, chocolate, and presumably earwax also work. :)

NT

PS I wonder about a secondary drill bit FAQ for those that want more depth of information? There are lots of extra tips could go in, but would be time wasting for many readers.

Reply to
meow2222

through butter" when searching for words to describe just how much better they are."

word missing

"The cordless drill is a godsend any time you need a drill and the freedom from a mains flex. It is ideal for screw driving, where the DC motor will provide a much smoother delivery of power than many mains drills"

a much smoother delivery of power -> much better control

"What voltage cordless drill do I want?"

Dont forget the many 2.4 and 3.6 tools about. Maybe:

2.4v will only drill a few holes in wood before going flat, or drive a couple of dozen 2" screws home (with pilot hole). It will cope with all but the biggest appliance screws. No use for heavier work. Suited to small light jobs.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

Thanks once again JR and NT for the detailed notes. I'll try and update the 'testing' versions with your inputs tonight. Look out for a new time stamp to see when they are done.

Phil

Reply to
Phil Addison

I have found that I can get a nice neat hole with flat bits - but the exit is what is usually messy (fixable with a backing block or by drilling from the other side once the spike breakes through)

Reply to
John Rumm

I'm not that keen on this idea - yes, I know it can be done, but there are people who haven't the *faintest* idea, who will try it. I watched an assistant in B&Q on Sunday morning (needed tap washers, so had to go there, unfortunately) advising a chap there with his 3 small boys in tow. The bloke was clueless about what he wanted, or how the things work, or what materials they cut, with what wheel, etc. etc. You get the picture. Him, sharpening a bit on an angle grinder? I hope not!

Reply to
Chris Bacon

And Chris.

New versions incorporating most of those comments are now in the 'testing' site. I daresay i've introduced a few more bugs ;-)

Phil

Reply to
Phil Addison

high end ones will"

Something occurs to me about this. A guy I know had a load of real cheapo power tools for site work, =A310 drills and angle grinders etc, and the tools were dead within a month. It seems the plastic gears were really only capable of lasting if the tool only saw occasional use. So I'm not sure one can say budget will do what decent stuff will. Also there is quite a high failure rate on low end tools. Perhaps add 'though the low end ones often dont last very well'

Bear in mind old B&D drills arent cheapskate stuff, theyre maybe the low end of midmarket. Power devil for example is not comparable with B&D.

Codless speed controllers arent essential on the lower power tools, eg

2=2E4v. In fact they wouldnt really gain you anything on those.

Maybe: This essential feature, -> This essential feature (though not on the lowest voltage tools),

It could do with someone's experience on soemthing between 2.4 and 12v, and some experience of what one can actually do with a =A325 special.

Batteries: higher voltage doesnt just mean more drilling power, it also means a longer work time from each charge.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

I think it has been said before, but drilling time is related to watt hours in the battery. Drilling any particular hole requires more or less the same amount of energy. Whether the cells are the cheap ones or premium makes a large difference, i.e a factor of about 2. AhxV is where it is at. For any type of cell, the work time is more or less proportional to the volume of the battery. As the higher voltages require multiple cells, the cells become smaller and therefore their Ah rating must necessarily fall. Working on the approximation that each cell in an 18V battery is the volume of an AA cell the present ceiling appears to be in the region of 2600 mAh for NiMH, which if I have done my sums correctly means about 20 minutes at 250W. The load on the drill is of course variable depending on going conditions.

John Schmitt.

Reply to
John Schmitt

The following sentance does say however:

"Spending more money will buy you better endurance from the motor, so you can run it longer without rest periods, and it will last longer, better speed controllers, and more robust gearboxes. Bearings will improve and become more impervious to dust - handy if you do much masonry work, or lots of grinding and sanding"

Does that not make it clear enough?

I would agree, although in general we have not covered much below 9.6V (what is there is more of an after thought)

I have used an early Skil 2.4V screwdriver. Good for light screwdriving and flatpack assembly, however you typically needed to do the final tightening by hand since it would run out of puff.

My first cordless drill was a 7.2V Richmond Tools one. Twin speed box, no speed controller. It used to get frequent use for light screwing and drilling tasks. It was very good for assembling flatpack furniture etc. Also ok for drilling in wood. The gearbox was not that robust however and a snaging spade bit stripped a tooth from a cog once.

Limits on performance were sticking a 2" screw into a rawlplug, or about

1.5" into solid timber (if not pre drilled). It got retired when I got a better 9.6V one, however recently has been pressed back into service as a light screwdriver after the happy discovery that the battery pack fits my Makita charger... Hence it is now a 15 min charge rather than 16 hours!

Well, that kind of depends on the drain rate, you can use the extra voltage to get extra power and/or extra run time depending on how you design it.

Reply to
John Rumm

added

Seems simplest to delete the reference to b&d.

I've woven this in.

Perhaps this sort of detail ought to go into separate FAQs, e.g. Cordless Charger FAQ and Cordless Battery FAQ.

Charging is an important topic, only touched on in this faq.

There is more information here

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and much more here (although oriented towards phone batteries)
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here
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?id=1910Phil

Reply to
Phil Addison

Hi John, what do you think of the revised words in that para that I uploaded while you were typing that?

I noticed there is no mention of reverse under cordless (only under mains), so took a gamble and added that they all have it. Is that actually true?

Sounds good to me.

Phil

Phil The uk.d-i-y FAQ is at

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Reply to
Phil Addison

Yup they look ok... the only slight funny is you now have a sentance that says cheap one don't last well, followed by another that says better ones last longer. The latter now seems redundant under the circumstances. ;-)

Well, I have never seen a cordless drill that does not have a reverse... So I would expect that is a safe statement.

You may want to massage that a little first - it was not quite in cut'n'paste format! ;-)

Reply to
John Rumm

B**ger!!

It's more of a pummelling - you may not recognize it ;-)

Phil

Reply to
Phil Addison

The extended "Power Tools FAQ" (by John Rumm)

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and the "Drill-bits and Drilling FAQ" (by John Schmitt)

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are now live in the main uk.d-i-y FAQ.

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are due to all of you that contributed comments and suggestions to both these FAQs, and indeed to the two Johns for the original articles.

I have also made an editing pass over most (but not all!) pages to make the layouts a bit more consistent. If you notice any bad links or other glitches as a result please let me know.

Phil The uk.d-i-y FAQ is at

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Reply to
Phil Addison

Did you mean for the intro to say: "with the piece *of* metal drilling from Dave"?

requests will now end up there.

(I see you only added 10% to the line height.... is there sucha a thing as typography agrophobia? ;-)

Reply to
John Rumm

Nope!! :-0 Well spotted.

Heh - probably ;-). But didn't you notice this comment ...

... in the note I emailed you? Maybe it's a 'browser thing', but it looks ok on my screen.

Cheers Phil

Reply to
Phil Addison

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