What to use to drill hole in steel door?

Buy a better quality hole saw. A good one will have no trouble going thru that thin metal skin.

Get a bimetal hole saw. Drill half way through, then dill all the way through with a bit the same size as the pilot bit, then drill through with the saw from the other side. I understand they make kits for doing this too. I has a jig that keeps every thing lined up and comes with the hole saw

Use a better hole saw. Good ones will cut metal all day long.

While cheap hole saws are just that, really cheap, I would think that even they could drill a hole through the "steel" with little problem. Most of them have trouble drilling through the wood. The "steel" of those doors is about as tough as aluminum foil. I agree, with the others however, start by buying a good saw.

I've done it with a cheap hole saw that I threw it away afterwards.

jim

the door doesn't have any existing hole?

I use whole saws for steel studs, you can get allot of wholes out of one bit. I even put eighteen 21/2" wholes in I beams under cooling towers ( lots of lube) You really don't have another choice. Good Milwaukee whole saw they can be sharpened to.

Get a good quality hole saw and you won't have any problem. Morse and Starrett are 2 brands that come to mind.

I agree with the other posters who said a good hole saw should do it. A while back I had to replace a power window motor in my car, which required drilling a one-inch hole in the inside sheet metal of the door to get at one of the bolts. It was surprisingly fast and easy with the hole saw. -- H

Actually it is more like 20-25 holes and a small chisel for between the holes. That's the way I did it for locks in my steel doors. Now I would probably just buy the door hole saw intended for metal and wood doors. Available at Lowes and HD. I bought one just for wood doors recently. I think the one for metal is about $3 more than the one for wood.

I went and bought the cheapest hole saw I could find and intended to toss it after the job was done. It made the hole easily and is still fairly sharp. I bet I can do many more doors with it. The only problem it was too shallow to penetrate the thickness of the door, but a little chiseling away at the wood allowed the center bit to penetrate the other side of the door and then I used the hole saw on that side.

I went through my mastercraft bimetal hole saw on my steel door Then a 15$ one from princess auto then the most expensive one I could find

Hi, HD or Lowes will have little more expensive better hole saw for like ~30.00 which will do the job. Also use some oil when you drill.

And you MUST use a low speed drill. Variable speed half inch as slow as you can turn it, under high pressure so you cut instead of skate. Lubricant won't hurt. I like TapMatic cutting fluid. Helps to have the door laying flat so the lube doesnt run away, and so you can really lean into it.

You're probably not applying enough pressure to actually cut the metal, but instead running the saw on the metal creating friction, as evidenced by your paint burning up. You need to put your weight into the drill so that the teeth can do their job, and not spin the drill too fast when you do this.

For jobs like this I use a 1/2" chuck drill, because it turns slower than my regular 3/8" chuck drill.

I can't speak to the quality of mastercraft bimetal hole saws, but I do know that Lennox makes a reliable one.

Jon

Hi, Ideally drill press is perfect for the job. I am in luck if I need to do something like that I'd take whole door to my SIL's plant. He owns/operates precision CAD/CAM machine shop. They have all the heavy tools operated by machinists or computer. few mins. job.

When I was in the 7th grade, my uncle came over to install a peephole in the front door, the kind that needs a 2" hole.

He took the door off and put it on the ground. But it was a wooden door. Wouldn't it have been a lot easier to stand on a box or chair if needed and just hold the drill horizontal. My mother or I could have watched to make sure it stayed horizontal

It seemed to me at the time like a lot of exrra work

From the sound of it, he probably had a hunch that the bottom of the door hadn't been dusted in a while. So he was able to "kill 2 birds with one stone'.

You want to keep the speed of the saw to around 50SFM. for a 1" hole saw that would be around 200RPM. Too fast and you'll see sparks, smoke, and burning paint.