Drilling Through Stainless Steel

Joined jun 7 2010 messages 120 reaction score 1 location clarksvlle tn.

Drilling through stainless steel.

When stainless steel work hardens it becomes very hard and extremely difficult to drill. Drilling through stainless steel is much like drilling through any other type of metal but with a few key differences. Because so many people ask how to drill through stainless steel we decided to dedicate a page to this topic. In this video i will show you how to drill stainless steel with regular drill bits and hole saws.

Many people have drilled holes into plain old steel with satisfactory results. After burning through a couple of cheap drill bits i did what everyone else does and searched the internet for tips on drilling into stainless steel. What stainless tends to do is work harden fairly quickly when heated and drilling at high speed creates a lot of heat. Most drill bits are sold in a set with multiple sizes.

Using high speed drill bits or better is mandatory. If you re drilling a lot of holes or through hardened steel then a cobalt steel bit or black oxide bit is a better choice. There are quite a few opinions out there on the best way to do this including using a center punch and drill press both options didn t suit my needs as i wanted to achieve this with the tools i. I know some people don t have any problems drilling through stainless steel but for those that are i hope this helps.

Drilling stainless steel is not as. Drilling stainless steel is not as difficult as you may thi. There are also other steps to drilling this material that will make the process easier. Certainly of all the metals out there stainless steel is the one that seems to cause most problems for people when it comes to drilling.

If you re only drilling a few holes through steel you can use a regular high speed steel bit.