Drilling Through Stainless Steel Sheet

Drilling through stainless steel is much like drilling through any other type of metal but with a few key differences.

Drilling through stainless steel sheet.

In this first quick tips video i show you how easy it is to drill and cut stainless steel when you have the right magic potion. But working with stainless steel can present challenges during fabrication keeping it clean and free of fingerprints and drilling through it efficiently. It may also cause clogging of the hole that may eventually lead to drill breakage. I set my drill press to its slowest speed or run my portable drill as slow as the trigger will allow.

When stainless steel work hardens it becomes very hard and extremely difficult to drill. There are also other steps to drilling this material that will make the process easier. On and off drilling. Start with a sharp drill and have it turning as slowly as your drill or drill press will allow.

Step drill bits are designed to drill holes in sheet metal and other thin materials. They re just the thing when you need a perfectly sized clean hole in a steel junction box electrical service panel or even a stainless steel sink. Please help support my effort. Many people have drilled holes into plain old steel with satisfactory results.

Using high speed drill bits or better is mandatory. When drilling stainless steel you may freely let the drilling chips get away from the hole that you are drilling. For drilling it s common knowledge that treating it like any other metal and applying sustained pressure until the hole is complete causes problems such as overheating and occasional breaking of the bit. Stainless steel is not the hardest of metals in its natural form however as pointed out by chip lawson in his piece know how.

In this video i will show you how to drill stainless steel with regular drill bits and hole saws. Here is the right way to drill stainless steel. Drilling stainless steel is not as difficult as you may thi.