Sunday 31 August 2014

TWENTY EIGHT LITTLE HOLES

The dot punching was not a problem, but my initial attempts to drill the first of the 28 pilot holes into the fishtail was hard work. Being so used to drilling into aluminium I started off slowly, with my battery drill, but the bit didn't bite into the stainless steel, through the paper template no trouble, but then just a dimple.

I put a new 3.2mm bit into my electric drill, cranked up the generator and using more pressure and higher speed, the bit eventually started to cut and then I was on a role.


After the first few pilot holes were drilled, I tried opening them up with a regular 6mm bit, but that caught and stalled the drill, so I used a step drill. I put a 6mm washer over it and as the hole was cut and the drill punched through, the washer prevented the next 8mm step from starting to cut.


When the last hole was cut, I removed the remains of the paper template, cleaned off the sellotape residue with white spirit and gently ran a large countersink into each hole to clean them up. I finished of with a stiff polishing mop on the electric drill to remove the last little bits of swarf and the first one was done. I'm saving the other one for tomorrow as my shoulder is now aching.

No comments:

Post a Comment