So you want a looOOooOOooooog drill

 

But they are spendy and you only need to drill a few holes.

 

Well you could use heat and a steel rod to burn the hole.

Steel rods are cheap but the PITA of constantly heating and reinserting the ting and the mess it makes.  

 

There is a better way.

Take that steel rod the  one that is about the size you need.   Drag it off to the grinder or get a file and make two flats on either side on one end.   You want substantial flats. Flats that look like this:

 

 

Then you need to grind the point.  That’s easy.  File or grind it so that there’s a little angle  and a cutting  relief angle.  No need to get fancy and try to make a radius.

 

Now take that drill put it in your hand drill and wail away.

 

Except that if you are drilling any distance the wood will collapse around the steel rod and  grab it.

So now you can make the drill point tip larger in diameter than the drill shaft.  Heat it to cherry red with your torch Mapp works best if you don’t have a braise welding rig.

Then really fast while it’s  cherry hot plase it on any heavy metal surface and whack it with a hammer.  No need to pretend you are Weyland Smith, Shakespear’s Fairy smith from the midsummer’s eve wild ride  and mash the thing the  cherry hot steel is like putty and will deform easily.

All you need is to mash it outward a little so the tip is bigger than the shaft.  20 or 40 Thousandths will do.

Then if you have a hankering to finish the job and harden the thing  - - -but it’s mild steel you can’t harden that.

Oh yes you can.

Steel a little sugar.  Powdered sugar is nicest.

You could purchase some case hardening compound  (http://www.midwayusa.com/product/119479/cherry-red-surface-hardening-compound-1-lb ) but sugar will serve in a pinch.   Heat the steel tip to cherry red.  Keep it how for a couple minutes to get the heat all the way deep inside down to it’s toes.  Then plunge it in the sugar real quick like.  Do this twice three or four times of you want. Each time a little more carbon gets in the metal.

If you have some  ground up limestone add  a little of that to the sugar.  It helps a little but you can get by without.  Some saltpeter and chrome oxide will help too.    Bone meal adds nitrogen which helps the carbon penetrate.  So does Cyanide.  But folks tend not to have cyanide laying about. 

 

That’ll  case harden it nicely.

 

  

Thanks, Cliff!

The information on case hardening is very interesting!

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Lew Kauffman-
Wood Turners Forum Host

Time traveler. Purveyor of the world's finest custom rolling pins!

Cliff, that is a great idea sir. Most excellent indeed.

There have been many times I have needed a longer drill bit and I literally could not find one in my area without internet ordering one and waiting for a week or more to get it.

I got a question, would there be a way to grind in a small pilot tip into the main tip?

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John Morris
The Patriot Woodworker
Proud Supporter of Wounded Warrior Project and Homes For Our Troops

You can grind the tip any way you want.  You could make it brad point

I make my own brad point drills using either a dermel with an abrasive cut off wheel and use a pair of magnifiers  to get the angles just so.   or  for large drills I mount an 10" abrasive cut off wheel in my old Craftsman Table saw and use that.  I used to just use a 7" wheel in my skillsaw but I prefer to have it mounted solidly.

If one is  dead set on using  Cyanide to add to their case hardening it's easy enough to get in small amounts. Apple seeds contain about 0.6mg of cyanide per half cup.  A whole cup is a completely lethal dose.    But there are better sources of Nitrogen.   Urea Fertilizer is almost pure nitrogen.   Finely Grinding a little of that might work wonders in the compound.