Drilling titanium

[Harry Bloomfield]

I know I am wasting my time, but curiosity got the better of me.

I have a watch with a titanium bracelet/strap. It is of an age/ level of wear, that the pins (around 1mm) between the sections of the bracelet are worn out and snapping. In the past I have replaced broken pins, with sewing needles, which eventually rust through. So, what to try next...

I bought some 1.5mm SS wire and thought to drill the holes in the links out to 1.5mm. The attempt to drill them failed. I expected the titanium to be not much harder than aluminium but I was wrong. It seemed to be extremely tough to drill. This was using a brand new coated HSS drill bit, but the material was just laughing at the drill bit.

Has anyone any practical experience of drilling titanium please?

[ss]

Not answering your drilling question but normally the pins press out and replacements should be readily available.

[ss]

Pins:

[Clive Arthur]

Tungsten carbide bits. Not personal experience, but that's what the workshop guys used where I used to work.

Everything needs to be clamped, because carbide bits don't bend, they snap.

Cheers

[RobH]

That's what I was thinking of, as I was in the steelwork/engineering game for to many years now.

Also you should try Trefolex or similar to keep the drill cooler and also to make the job a bit easier.

[newshound]

You can get stainless steel sewing needles, they are likely to be much "harder" than SS wire so the original diameter should be suitable.

Titanium is a bugger to drill, I'd expect you to struggle in a home setup.

[Harry Bloomfield]

It happens that newshound formulated :

I will investigate that, thanks..

[Bill Wright]

Ken: Oh it's not too bad mum, we're using some new tungsten carbide drills for the preliminary coal-face scouring operations. Mum: Oh that sounds nice, dear.

(Working class playwright: Python)

Bill

[Harry Bloomfield]

Nightjar explained :

Power feed for such a tiny drill I do not have, apart from on my lath, but trying to set that up repeatedly for each link, would be a nightmare. Thanks for confirming that titanium is as difficult as it seemed to drill out.

[Andrew]

The main bulkhead separating pilot from engine bay on a certain jet fighter is machined from a solid billet of titanium, the milling process of which, removed about 80% of the original metal.

Often wondered what sort of machine tools they use to do this.

[michael adams]

A CNC mill. The tool shape and tool path will be optimised for heat dispersion and coolant will be applied at high pressure by the gallon. with a miniaml amount of material being removed at a time.

In jobs such as this I'd imagine machine time and coolant costs are fairly low down the list of priorities.

But as with all work involving very hard materials whether its the Egyptians carving monumental statues out of granite or the Chinese fashioning intricate carvings out of jade, the "how" question is often best answered in just two words; "very slowly".

michael adams

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