[Jewelry making - Article 00203] - Re: [Orchid] Broken drill bits remover

[Peter W . Rowe]

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Hi Judy,

    For carbon or high speed steel bits, Alum works. It needs to be a
    pretty much saturated solution, and boiling, as I noted. Had it been
    a steel bit, 20 minutes in such a solution would have done it. Cold
    and mixed to a weak solution might not work well, in part because the
    alum isn't such a strong agent, but also because, if cold, the bit
    likely still has wax or oil from drilling coating it. That's one
    additional reason to use the solutions hot, since wax and oil get
    removed more easily, allowing etching of the bit. 

    But carbide isn't a steel, and as you've found, alum doesn't touch
    it. Sparex, or other sodium bisulphate pickle, though, seems to.
    Newly mixed, pretty strong, and hot, is how I've used it with
    carbide. It's a bit slower than on steel bits, which get cleaned out
    pretty quickly, but it seems to work. If I'm in a hurry, I'll put the
    hot pickle in a glass beaker with a loose cover and hang that in the
    hot ultrasonic cleaner, which keeps the pickle hot, and also then
    adds ultrasonic action to the recipe. 

    Carbide, though hard, isn't my favorite for drill bits, precisely
    because they break so easily. The keep their sharp edge, of course,
    but broken, that's of little use. I prefer high speed steel. Though
    they dull more easily, they start out sharper, I think. Carbide is
    nice for the harder to drill metals like titanium, or for pearls, or
    other hard materials. But when I can, I still prefer High Speed
    Steel. I'd rather have to resharpen a dull HSS bit than have to
    bother with trying to extract the shards of a broken carbide one,
    even if Pickle does eventually dissolve it... 

Peter
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