Hi Rusty
I learned the hard way trying to drill stainless that you have to
drill some metals slowly. Hi speed doesn't drill any faster and ruins
tips quickly. How was your drill speed?
Howard
On Oct 4, 2008, at 11:31 AM, thebrassbasher wrote:
> This post probably doesn't belong here but what the heck. I've been
> working on my OMI READING 2-8-0 (Mother Hubbard/Camelback)I decided
> that I wanted to add firebox lights in the model. I figured that it
> would be a good thing to drill the vent holes in the two fire box
> doors. In the process I've went through about 12 of the # 72 drills
> and only managed to get 7 holes drilled. (These are not the cheap
> drills either) They all would dull up quickly after one hole and some
> of them never made it through even one hole. I decided I should test
> the sharpness of the drills I was using on a scrap piece of brass
> before I tried to drill some of the holes, and they would drill the
> scrap with no problem at all. Then when I went to drill one of the
> holes the drill would dull up real quick.
> I have a fix for that! I have VERY EXPENSIVE small carbide drills.
> They run about $8.00 each and easily drill through just about
> everything. They too dulled up in a hurry.
> With this I went into the panic mode. There is an alloy that looks
> like brass, casts like brass and is used in industry. With heat
> treating they use it in nuclear power plants, the oil fields to make
> non sparking tools that are as hard as steel, as some electrode
> components in the welding industry, and other uses. It is a
> beryllium-copper alloy. Handling it in a solid part form presents no
> problem. BUT!! Machining it is very difficult, and, the dust from
> machining is extremely toxic. Inhaling this dust isn't just a little
> toxic, it's really, really, bad. I don't know what the L/D of
> Beryllium is and I don't care. I just know I want no part of
> Beryllium!! I carefully cleaned up my work area. I put the chips in a
> container and mixed with epoxy to make a solid mass. Mind you, I am
> not absolutely sure this stuff had Beryllium in it. Silicon-bronze is
> also hard. But I have never had this problem drilling through
> silicon-bronze! I'm taking no chances here.
> I've never ran into this in 40 years of messing around with brass
> models. I've taken off the two firebox doors and they went with the
> chips. Time to go wash my hand again.
>
> Rusty (J Rustermier)
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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