Being reminded of an old decision

Comes time to drill a few 3/32" holes through a steel sandwich on aluminum.

Open the drill index, all filled with nice shiny twist drills, and extract the one that's in the 3/32" position.  Check with a caliper: it's a hair undersize, but whatever; I'd been pondering drilling the holes a size smaller and then finishing them up as a second step.

Start drilling.  Right through the top layer of aluminum.  The steel, though... after way too much time, it had just made a shallow divot.

Oh, right.

I bought the nice shiny 118 115-piece drill set with steel index back in the 90s, choosing a bargain set with the intention of replacing individual drills, as they wore out, with high-quality ones.  That way, I'd have all the funny sizes on hand, and I'd end up buying pricey replacements just for the ones that wore out, those presumably being the ones that got the most use.

Apparently I hadn't tried using the 3/32" drill on steel before, and also the steel in question is on the hard side.  This is just not gonna work.

Oh, well.  Order a replacement and some spares, and resume work on the project once they arrive.  There's plenty else to do in the meantime.

Comments

[Rob]

I bought a large drill index from Harbor Freight with the same intentions. I must have gotten rid of it when I downsized to go mobile (moved into an RV). Today I have a small set with quality bits and that lives in the tool bag with my Ryobi 18v drill & driver set.