Even less expensive are the LV Forstner bits.
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...at=1,180,42240
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Even less expensive are the LV Forstner bits.
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...at=1,180,42240
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MLCS, Steelex, and others sell 2"+ Forstner bits for < $30 (Amazon, etc.). The shank may not be long enough so use one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Grizzly-H5943-.../dp/B0007D2BUMOriginally Posted by Ralph Boumenot
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I don't like expansion bits. In the 60's I had a Woodcraft expansion bit,which at that time,and from that source,probably better quality than most of those today(especially the Irwin). It would get loose and keep expanding in the hole,in spite of being fully tightened. The hole would get bigger inside.
If you get the Grizzly,and it isn't HSS,use a VERY slow speed on the drill press. Carbon steel will heat up and lose temper.
Probably best to drill a bunch of holes,as suggested,and then rasp it out. OR, if you get the Grizzly bit,drill all around the circumference with smaller drills,retaining the solid center of the wood. Then,with the slowest speed,drill the hole out with the large bit. The drilled small homes will make the job a LOT easier for the large(probably carbon) drill.
In fact,you could also drill holes within the circumference to further relieve the big drill from turning blue. Just save the center of the hole for the center spur of the large drill to stabilize itself on.
For trying to drill from the solid wood,without relieving the circumference as explained above,I expect the drill press doesn't go slow enough. If I had to bore that hole,I'd put it in my lathe,and run it 30 RPM. Most drill presses just do not go slow enough. Not even the metal versions,unless they are VERY expensive. I have seen usually,metal drill presses that advertise that they'll drill a 1 1/2" hole in cast iron. But,with a low speed of 150 RPM,that will just burn out the drill bit.
Last edited by george wilson; 02-29-2012 at 6:20 PM.
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I bought and used the LV sawtooth forstner bits that Eddie Darby linked to. I bought the cheaper HCS ones for the larger sizes I figured I'd rarely if ever use again, and HSS for some smaller ones that I needed. I borrowed the use of a friend's drill press and set the belt to the slowest speed possible. Still kinda scary fast, and the vibration would periodically loosen the morse taper on the chuck.(Mind you this was a nice, new-ish drill press.)
I also did some shallow counterbores with a fly cutter on the drill press (to inset the vise garters, 5" diameter), and that was horrifyingly fast even at the slowest speed.Not recommended, even for Normites.
The sawtooth bits, once chucked up, were not quite long enough to bore all the way through the leg. So I finished the vise screw hole with a hole saw in a brace drill. It's not as smooth as using a drill press, unless you're exceptionally steady as you swing your arm around. So the walls of the hole are not so pretty, but it works, and the fear factor is quite low.
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I recently did this for a leg vise with an Irwin expansion bit and brace. It quickly gave way to roughing the hole with smaller augers once I realized that since I wasn't tapping the hole, it did not need to be a perfect (or even close) circle.
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FWIW, I was just looking at Chris Schwarz' workbench book again and looking at the section for his slab-top cherry bench - for the vise chop, he drills a series of larger holes, and cleans them up with a chisel for a roughly sized hexagonal hole, but in the leg, he just makes a big ol' honking square hole.
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Since I brought up a holesaw, and since I needed a hole for the Lake Erie screw I just ordered today, I thought I'd have a go with it. Probably not the best method, but I figured it wasn't the worst, so I'd have a go at it.
The big holesaw in my cheap drill press was scary, so I went with a brace, as I mentioned.
bench-hole - 1.jpg
Layed things out first, finding my center point. I went with a height that will put my bench screw 10 inches down from the top of the bench, as that was what I saw in a couple of plans in the Chris Schwarz's workbench book. Scribed a circle with my dividers to allow me to make sure I wasn't way off when the hole saw came into play.
bench-hole - 2.jpg
I used my cheap drill press to drill a hole for the lead drill of the hole saw, this should help me a little bit to guide the hole saw square through the full thickness of the leg. My drill press (nor the bit I was using) have enough length to get through the whole leg, and even if it did, there's enough runout in this silly thing to be a problem, so I drilled from each side.
bench-hole - 3.jpg
The holes lined up pretty darn near perfect.
bench-hole - 4.jpg
Not bad for this rusty thing I think I bought out of the back of a truck.
bench-hole - 5.jpg
My Yankee 8" brace. It's got the best jaws out of my braces for holding these round-shank bits. Because a hole-saw means you aren't removing a whole lot of waste, I can get by with the 8" sweep. If I was ripping up the whole width with an auger, I'd want to use something with a much larger sweep!
bench-hole - 6.jpg
A little paste wax on the sides of the bit helps a little if things start binding . . .
bench-hole - 7.jpg
Also remember, this kerf fills with sawdust pretty quickly, since you aren't drilling through a board, but just keep going . . . and going . . . so I stop pretty frequently to clean up the sawdust with my little shop vac.
A key point to remember, I find, is the "saw" part in "hole saw" - you can push harder, but it's not going to saw much faster. Let the weight of the tool do the work. Also, a lot of times, with the cheap holesaws, (particularly if you've been drilling stuff like drywall or plaster, which is pretty abrasive) the things aren't that sharp. You can sharpen these carefully with a small file, and things go a lot better. I should have stopped to sharpen this before this job, and I'm regretting I didn't.
bench-hole - 8.jpg
Working with a longish chisel (well, you don't need to start long, but you need a long one as things get deeper) and going across the grain, you can knock out pretty big chips as you go along. This Witherby socket chisel I usually use for more delicate work, but it got the job done. Remember, unlike a mortise, there's no going back and doing the final cuts afterwards, so be careful when you lever not to bruise things.
More to come . . ..
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bench-hole - 11.jpg
bench-hole - 10.jpg
Getting there . . .
bench-hole - 9.jpg
Like I said . . . big chunks. No need to be delicate.
bench-hole - 12.jpg
Because speed, not torque really seems to be the key here, I tried switching to this little 6" Stanley/Fray brace for the other side. (Switching sides, again, seems to help on keeping things squarish. It was a little faster because of the smaller swing, but I found it harder to keep level for whatever reason, and the chuck didn't do as good a job as the Yankee on the round shank bit. That 8" Yankee seemed to be the sweet spot for me.
By the way, if you're trying to figure out why the bit is slipping, it's probably something in the whole hole saw assembly - in my case, the set screw on the drill shank loosened somehow, and it took me a while to figure out what was going on.
bench-hole - 13.jpg
I couldn't chisel out the last bit - but the more you chisel away, the closer easier going it is, if for nothing else than the sawdust can get out of the resulting shallower kerf easier. Here's what was left when I was done.
bench-hole - 14.jpg
A little hair between the two cuts, but they don't seem too far off from each other.
bench-hole - 15.jpg
And a nice, pretty perfect looking hole. Granted, one that you really won't ever see, but a really nice hole nonetheless. A perfect clearance fit at 2 and half inches and
wait? 2 and a half inches? Wasn't this going to be a clearance fit at a hair larger than 2 and a half?
bench-hole - 16.jpg
Yeah - make sure you have the right hole saw chucked up *before* you start drilling.
Darn it.
Last edited by Jessica Pierce-LaRose; 03-01-2012 at 6:24 PM.
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bench-hole - 17.jpg
In the end, it looks pretty nice, although I'm going to have to open it up and ruin that look, but like I said, you're not going to see it.
Speed? I should have time it. Too slow, but having worked with these things before, I've got a feeling it's because I should have sharpened the holesaw first. I don't know why I didn't. I also wasted a lot of time fiddling with that set screw. Still probably would have been faster to drill a series of holes and then whack out the waste, either roughly, or done a series of quarter inch holes like Derek recommended.
So yeah? The holesaw thing I mentioned? Probably not worth it, but it looks okay in the end. For a hole you really won't ever see. But it was cheap. But so is drilling a few more holes and knocking things out with a chisel.
Strikes me that the drill press in these photos is the first use of a powered tool on this "bench" build. Also, I have a lot more respect now for folks like Derek who can get something done *and* take nice photos of it in the progress. Also makes me realize I need better lighting in the work room.
[OP]
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Hi Derek,
I actually thought of doing this but I was hoping that there was something easy. That said, I found my fly cutter and I'm going to experiment with that this weekend.
ralph
[OP]
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Hi Sean,
I didn't think of Grizzly and they don't come up on a google. For $30 I might go that route.
ralph
[OP]
Contributor
Thanks to all the great info I got. Nothing like the collective brain power of Neanderthal Haven to solve problems. I think I'll go with drilling a bunch of holes around the perimeter and using chisels and rasps to clean it up. I can use the $30 plus on wood.
ralph
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