[Jewelry making - Article 01504] - Re: [Orchid] Drilling Dilema

[Ian W. Wright]

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Hi Jeff,

    There are probably two main things you are doing wrong - using too
    high a speed and using too much pressure. Presumably the nails are
    made of iron which is a soft and sticky material. Diamond drills are
    hopeless with such materials and should be reserved for really hard
    materials - glass, hard tool steel, stones etc. Either normal High
    Speed Steel drills (not so called because you should use them at high
    speed but rather because they can tolerate higher speeds than the
    older tool steel drills without losing their temper) or carbide
    drills shouod work Ok. If you are using High Speed drills, you should
    use a fairly low rotation speed - maybe around 6 - 800 rpm and drill
    with just enough pressure so that the drill keeps making chips. you
    should ease off the pressure every few seconds also to clear the tip
    of the drill and cool it a little. If you are using carbide, you can
    use a higher speed but, again, only enough pressure to make it cut
    and lift off regularly. Also with carbide, it is important that the
    work is held down firmly (as in clamped) to the drill table as the
    drill will almost certainly break if the work lifts as the drill
    breaks through. In both cases, you need to ease off the pressure to a
    large extent as the drill starts to break through as this is when the
    drill is most likely to break. If you maintain the same pressure, the
    drill will try to eat through the metal quicker as the hole appears
    and the metal at the edge of the hole will jam in the drill flutes
    and stop it. Of course, the drilling machine has too much power to be
    stopped so easily and so will just break the drill. Using a lubricant
    in this situation is optional - its only purpose would be to cool the
    drill and, if you drill in little bites as I suggest, this will not
    be necessary. 

Best wishes,
Ian
Ian W. Wright
Sheffield UK
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