Drilling

Drilling is a cutting process that uses a drill bit to cut a hole of circular cross-section in solid materials. The drill bit is usually a rotary cutting tool, often multi-point. The bit is pressed against the work-piece and rotated at rates from hundreds to thousands of revolutions per minute. This forces the cutting edge against the work-piece, cutting off chips (swarf) from the hole as it is drilled.

Types of Drilling

There are various types of drilling such as:

• Deep hole drilling - Drilling deep holes is not a simple task, but rather a complex operation involving a balanced set of factors that can be mastered only through years of dedicated experience.

• Gun drilling - Gun drilling is a deep hole drilling process that uses a long, thin cutting tool to produce holes in metal at high depth-to-diameter ratios.

• Trepanning - Trepanning is a method of drilling bigger holes in the material by removing a volume of the material along the circumference of the desired internal diameter.

Drilling Equipment

Drilling is performed on various equipment, some of them are:

• Drill press - A drill press (also known as pedestal drill, pillar drill, or bench drill) is a fixed style of drill that may be mounted on a stand or bolted to the floor or workbench.

• Milling machine - Milling machines are often classed in two basic forms, horizontal and vertical, which refers to the orientation of the main spindle.

• Lathe - A lathe is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning.

Drilling Procedures

Drilling procedures include:

• Spot drilling - Spot drilling is about making a shallow/short drill into the workpiece in order to create a divot for the follow-up (and more precise) standard drill.

• Center drilling - Center drilling is similar to spot drilling in that it is the first step of drilling a hole and is used to ensure that the subsequent drilling process is accurate.

• Peck drilling - Peck drilling, or the process of drilling or cutting a material using a center-cutting end mill, is often used when drilling deeper holes in solid material.

See Also

• Cutting process
• Machining
• Metalworking

Drilling Resources
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