Adjustable hole cutter

What size of hole range? What size/type material?

Router with DIY jig? - plenty of designs on Youtube

What size hole, wood, steel, thickness?

For wood you might like to look at "expansive bits".

How big a hole and through what sort of material? What is SF?

A fairly basic adjustable one from one of the sheds will do anything up to about 3" diameter fairly reliably through wood starting from opposite sides nearly doubles the possible cut depth. Mine is still going strong after years of heavy use so it can't be all that flimsy.

If you don't tighten it up properly then it will probably self destruct.

Fixed sized core drills can be had for almost any material. But even they begin to struggle once you go past a certain depth or diameter.

The guy who cut a hole in my solid Victorian brick wall for the fire vent destroyed a core drill doing it and damaged a second one. The small round flints in the handmade bricks jammed it at every opportunity.

Screwfix - similar to Toolsatan

Ah right. I have sometimes made the mistake of buying things from there in pre lockdown days because they were slightly cheaper than B&Q and had the exact size drill I wanted in stock. I vowed never to use them again after a 45 minute wait at the online orders collection counter.

Do ToolSatan also have their queuing system designed as one of the inner circles of Hell? That really only happens at B&Q on Bank Holidays.

Sorry, should have said. Wood mainly - haven't needed bigger than hole-saw size in metal for decades. The hole that I needed was 110mm dia, so 55mm throw. I stitch-drilled it then used a pad saw as close to the periphery as I could get, then rasp then file...! The amount of 'swarf' was amazing. I had a TC core drill of 115mm that would have been OK but didn't think of that. I don't know how it would have done on wood.

Don't have a router, though.

Unlucky. I have never waited more than 10 minutes, and that was exceptional. Usually it's straight in, straight out.

And they've just opened a new one under 2 miles away - half a mile nearer than the one I used to use!

there are two TS close to me. I never have that sort of problem at either

At one time SF were bad at service but pre-lock-down this year the local SF got a lot better.

In pre-lockdown go at the wrong time and every tradesman in his white van will turn up at the same time. Go off-peak and service tends to be a lot faster UNLESS you get the one time DIYer who doesn't know what they actually want from reading the catalogue :(

These days both Screwfix and Toolstation are click and collect. Order on line and pay then wait for the text (or email?) message to say that your order has been processed. You then go to the store/outlet, give them the last digits of the order number, perhaps provide photo ID or produce the card from which you paid and they will fetch your order.

I've found with many SF orders that if I order after 9:30 am the confirmation text arrives around 10 to 15 minutes later. The wait at the store (outside) depends on how many people also waiting but if avoiding the "tradesmen times" (after opening, lunch time, and common work knock off times) that often there is only one person in front of me and, locally, 3 service counters.

In my area SF and TS are in adjacent buildings and TS seem to have a very similar, or identical, system.

On-line you have to check that the local outlet has stock or that it can be obtained the next day. For next day you may not get the confirmation until after 1 pm.

At the moment they don't let you in the building, you just collect from a table outside the doors ...

Not at the local one, inside Wickes.

Sounds like he was using el-cheapo tungsten carbide core drill and not a diamond core drill, which has very fine 'teeth' so less likely to jam.

These look good - I might get one - but go up to 76mm dia. Hole saws go higher but 102mm (not quite big enough, so some filing needed) then to 114mm (too big!). I have hole saws going to 70mm so I'll get some bigger ones then make do and bodge!