I need to drill one 3” hole and another 2 5/8” hole in a sheet of 18-gauge cold rolled steel measuring 32” x 32” in size. Two quick questions for the community:
are there hole saws available for the community at the space or do I need to buy and bring my own hole saws?
is training required before using the drill press (assuming that is the best machinery for the job)?
Thanks all!
Where do you need to make the hole? We have a turret punch that may have those 2 sizes.
We do have hole saws. I can’t tell you what sizes we have. The drill press requires no training. However you do need to use caution about your sheet metal, as it will be sharp.
Annular cutters! Any time your trying to make relatively large holes in metal, annular cutters take a somewhat nerve racking experience and turn it into the same as drilling through dense wood! They’re not cheap but the ease at which they can say cut a 2” hole in 2” thick steel makes them infinitely worth it!
I’m all about clean and easy, but a quick follow up question - are these available at the makerspace? I need to cut (1) 3” hole and (1) 2 5/8”-2 7/8” hole and would prefer to not have to spend what looks to be ~$100 per cutter. Sorry if this is a dumb question - I just joined earlier in the month and “don’t know what I don’t know” if that makes sense.
I don’t know if they are still around in machine Shop, but about 3 years (historic for DMS small tools) ago I donated a set of bimetal hole saws for cutting metal. They ranged in the sizes your looking for, Root around in the rolling cabinets, they were in black plastic case.
will do! I have a 3” Milwaukee hole saw - but will do some digging to see what I can find up there. I’m a carpenter (by trade) but worked in a machine shop for 3+ years (and saw some injuries). Would really like to keep all my fingers while drilling a couple of holes.
Note: I have a lot of C-clamps and will bring some plywood to clamp down on the sheet metal. Any other recommendations (from anyone) on the best order of operation for making the holes?
Be sure they are bimetal blades or specified as metal blades - otherwise your hole saw may be a single-use-one ho;e blade.
If you use a hole saw clamping won’t be much of an issue, Most hole saws have drill in the middle that is part of the mandrel for the saw. Use a punch or predrill a small hole so the mandrel drill won’t wander.
Make sure the wood underneath is thicker than the drill will extend through the metal. Plywood likely to thin. You’ll just be clamping mainly to keep the piece for rotating and cutting hand or slicing you waist high (see note 1). Once drill goes through metal the cutter can’t move laterally.
What about the plasma table?
Best,
Jim
That would work but I don’t have training on the plasma table and need to knock this out this week
So the largest hole saw we have is 2-1/2”. The punch only goes to 1-1/2”
Thanks for confirming -I’ll make a trip to the store!
I’m not sure you have to ask machine shop, but it would seem a odd Adsense absence just from talking to people at the welder supply from time to time when I refill( swap out) my bottles and they spoke of them as a must have when going through any metal that loses the gauge thickness classification
What they mean is when you go through anything thicker than a normal gauge IE 1/4 or 1/2”, they are the thing to use. The thinner gauges are not as effective with the annular cutters.
