Mag Drills and Weldon bits

[Ljohnsaw]

OK, pretty pleased with it but there are a couple things they should improve.  First the pictures!
Started out drilling through some 5/8" cutting edge scrap from my bucket refurbish.


 Once it broke through the bottom, it ejects the plug.  I retracted the drill bit and moved the drill.  Then I saw you really need to punch down another 1/4" or so to remove the burr that is about the same size as on the plug.

On the third hole, I thought there was still some coolant in the bottle, but no, and I overheated/dulled the bit  :-\  The nipple on the bottom of the bottle sits up inside about 1/4" to 5/16" so you can't really use up all the coolant.  At first I thought the coolant line was plugged.  I filled the bottle and opened the valve to full.  Nothing flowing.  So I blew in the bottle to pressurize it - still no flow.  The ejector pin has to be pushed (in contact with the drilling plate) to open a valve in the spindle.  Pretty clever - when you stop drilling, the coolant stops. 

Anyhow, I touched the cutter up with a goofy diamond grinder I made with a sewing machine motor.  Then it cut pretty good again.  The only problem then is it didn't eject the plug on two holes.  I must have altered the geometry or something.  Even with stopping to sharpen, the eight holes took an hour mostly because I was going slow and trying different things.  I found it cuts faster at the lower speed.

Then on to the 1½" stock.  This was a milder steel.  I think I was punching the holes at about the same speed as a ¼" hole in aluminum of the same thickness.  Pretty impressive.

 

 
On the third hole I couldn't get it to punch through so I thought it might be dull and I re-touched up.  But that made no difference.  So I leaned on it more and it went through.  I think the surface is just a bit harder from the milling process.

So right off, I see three things that need changes/improvements. 

The coolant bottle uses magnets to attach to some small steel strips screwed to the side of the press slide.  The magnets are about twice the width of the steel and they slide around allowing the bottle to twist and drop down.  I'm going to make some wider plates with an edge on them to contain the magnets to keep the bottle straight.

The handle for lowering the drill can be placed on either side and has a push button quick release to make it easy.  Really nice.  However, the hose on the coolant bottle is too short to wrap to the other side so I'm stuck with the handle on the right side for now.  I'll dig out some hose and fix that.

The chuck is a tool-less set up.  You push the collar up, insert the bit (you have to look for and align with the flats on the bit) and slide the collar down.  Easy.  Not super tight so there is a little play in the bit but still cuts a clean hole.  On my ¼" DeWalt impact gun, you PULL the collar to release the bit.  Twice while drilling, at the end after punching through, I continue down to clean up the exit burr, the collar gets pushed up by the metal shavings and it releases the bit in the hole when I crank the head up.  Not much I can do about that other than make sure the chips are not piling up at the end of the cutting.

And now I refill the coolant bottle when it gets to the half way mark ;)

[Crusarius]

I am jealous. I still want one of those pretty bad.

[scsmith42]

Looks like a great purchase; thanks for the review.

Although my Hougen has a built in coolant bottle, I use an oil can with cutting oil and manually lube the cutter while it's drilling.

A slow speed, with steady feed seems to work best for me. I'm careful not to allow the cutter to work harden the steel when drilling.

So far I have not had to resharpen any cutters.  But I've only used them to drill mild steel.  I've broken some that were <1/2" so I'll install the drill chuck and use a standard twist drill bit when drilling smaller holes.

Mag drills are fantastic tools for drilling in thick steel.

[Tom K]

Do you have any picture of the burr's on the bottom? Maybe you have a different profile then the annular cutters I'm used to, I haven't noticed any burrs.  The plug has that shelf, but the work piece has always been clean.

I can't say much about feed rate as I haven't drilled much thick metal. Mine has either manual or self feed and the self feed is actually faster then I would have thought. That cutting edge is pretty hard steel though, you should be able to feed faster in mild/low carbon steel.

[Ljohnsaw]

There are 3 different profiles on the teeth, IIRC.  One high on the inside, one high on the outside and one that is more of a V profile.  Perhaps that V is a bit longer so the middle of the cut is deeper.  The first hole I retracted as soon as the plug popped - from the force of the center finder.  Its got a strong spring.  I just go a little further after the pop now.

[Ljohnsaw]

OK, used it again.  Had 4 holes to drill in 1½" mild steel (again).  Marked it, punched the center hole and scratched the cut lines with my angle grinder (for later cutting off).  Set up the drill.  Drilled four 1 inch holes that took less than a minute each (I counted).  Cleaned up.  Total time ~30 minutes for 4 minutes of drilling :D  I should have bought this thing 35 years ago!

On my tractor, I need to enlarge these oblong holes for my 3pt hitch stabilizer bars.  I think they are ¾" and need to be 1" or a little bigger.  Should be a piece of cake.  For drilling sideways or upside down, they say to use drilling paste.  Where do you find that locally?  HD?  Would axle grease suffice?


 I might have to take a piece of plate steel, pre-drill a 2" hole, clamp it on and stick the drill to that.

[btulloh]

Hougen slick stick. Amazon, etc.

Slick stick

[btulloh]

That's impressive. Glad it's turned out to be a good investment. The problem now is that it makes me want to expand my annular cutter collection. I sure could use a mag drill too, but I always come to the conclusion that I wouldn't need it often enough to justify. Hmmmmm.

Most of the heavy stuff I need drill right now can go to the drill press. Maybe I should get a couple of those long cutters and pick up a weldon chuck on a morse taper to use in the drill press. That could get me by until I decide i really need the mag drill. Or convince myself I need one.  (Tell us again how you should of bought one thirty-five years ago . . . lol )

[Andries]

. . .  I need to enlarge these oblong holes for my 3pt hitch stabilizer bars.  I think they are ¾" and need to be 1" or a little bigger. . . . 

Why?
Stabilizer bars with 1" bolts? . . . can't understand that. 
The stock bars and attachments have taken a ton of abuse on my 545D Ford, without any carnage on the attachment points or the bars. 
Just trying to understand what you're up to John.
I have a Milwaukee mag drill and it is fabulous. When you need it, it's priceless.

[Tom King]

Makes a nice drill press for large holes in wood too.  Clamp the drill press to a steel plate with the magnet, and if you need to, clamp the plate to the beam.  

When I need holes in a plate to mount the drill on something by bolting the plate to whatever, I use the MDP to drill the holes needed in the plate.

[Ljohnsaw]

Stabilizer bars with 1" bolts? . . . can't understand that.

Somehow I missed your guys' comments.  I wanted to make a pin-on attachment.  I'll get a picture tomorrow.  Turns out I couldn't get the drill in there - not enough room.  So I had to hand file about 1/8" from the top and bottom of the slots.

[Ljohnsaw]

When you need it, it's priceless.

So I was reworking my forklift QA plate.  I made a plate out of some 20" channel iron.  Welded up two 1" x 3" bars to make up a 2" top bar and another two bars offset to make the bottom bar.  But the channel iron turned out to be too flexible and would release from the tractor mount.  So I bought a new 1/2" QA plate.  I torched off the useless parts of the channel iron but didn't want to cut off the bars since I had them spaced perfectly for the forks.  I welded the top and bottom "sub-assembly" the QA plate.  I wanted to weld between the bars as well.  So I used the mag drill to punch some 1-1/16" holes in the channel iron.  The drill "stops" drilling when you get through one plate.  That's because there is a wide burr on the plug that doesn't let the cutters start on the next layer - which is what I wanted.  Punched 11 holes in 10 minutes.



And welded.

 
I love this drill!

[Andries]

Looks impressive John.
When's the "stress test" aka trial run going to happen? 
It looks really hefty, and the mag drill makes a big difference when a fabricating project comes up.

[Ljohnsaw]

It happened yesterday.  I went after the 17' log (30" dia? maybe more).  Slid the forks under it and lifted.  The back end of the tractor went right up in the air!  Bounced it a few times and I managed to budge the log a little.  Guess I need to use the SkyTrak for that one!  So I rounded up various other logs to add to the burn pile without issue tho a little lite on the rear end!

[Ljohnsaw]

Stabilizer bars with 1" bolts? . . . can't understand that.

So here's the pictures.  The attachment to the tractor next to the wheels could only handle 3/4" pin mounts but I couldn't find any long enough to fit through the double set of holes.  So I went to the 1" pins.

I had to trim of the extra threaded part as it was almost hitting the inner wheel weight.
For the attachment to the lift arms, I used a bolt with two nuts clamping it tight to the lift arms and just loose enough to allow the blue part to turn.


Here is the Pat's Quick Hitch installed.  At some point someone cut/bent/welded the ends of the arms at a pretty good angle.  They were originally over to the right (center) more making a very awkward angle (because they had too short of pins?) so I put in some long bolts.


The ripper points were a bit worn.  I slit them with my DeWalt 20v angle grinder.  EasiPeasi.  But I had to bring the rippers home to use my Oxy/Acet torch.  Map Gas just wouldn't cut it heating them up to dimple them.


Three were missing.  I'll have to grind down the new ones to get that special profile ;)

[Crusarius]

I need to do that with my stabilizer bars. one of them was bent and locked up pretty bad. I did manage to straighten it enough to work with a bottle jack.

[Ljohnsaw]

Love this drill!  I had some spare time yesterday because all the really necessary tasks went well without a hitch.  I needed to move the jacks on my mill to the ends for more stability.  Took longer to set up the holes than to drill them.  Drill 4 holes each through both sides of the 1/4" tube (good thing I bought a set of 2" long bits!) took maybe 2 minutes per jack.

Old mount holes where the shadow crosses the near rail.  The bunk is located here so the jack crank clears.  After leveling the mill, can move the buck right up to the jack if need be.


The other end that needed adjusting.

 

 
Next log up to cut.


 

[Cornerstone]

The cheapie mag drill I have has a crappy coolant tank set up and I think if I use it it's bound to fail. I use a spray bottle with a homemade coolant brew that's 1 gallon of water/ 1 oz. of dishwashing detergent/1oz. of motor oil. Shake it up real good. It'll want to separate itself but so far I haven't burned a bit yet. I keep a consistent flow of coolant going and check the bit every once and a while to see if it's hot.

Glad for your success John. Money well spent.