A Hard Way To Cut Steel!

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Hi All,

Just got this interesting little Cased set of Swiss Made tools in with a bunch of tooling etc.

It is fortunate that there was this old photo of the tools being used as There is no info online about them, not even a name for them.

Looks like a hard way to cut a block of steel by hand! Cheers, Martin

[DC31kParticipant @dc31k]

Chain drilling is a well-established way of forming cut outs in material.

The tools shown are an improved mousetrap take on chiselling away the webs between the holes.

[JAParticipant @ja]

This is more like how large stone blocks are, or were, split. It still leaves a lot of work.

JA

edit. Looking again at the picture, not quite. But it still leaves a lot of filing.

 

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Is there a actual name for these tools?

Funny thing was, when I saw them in the very poor auction photo in with several other items I zoomed in and mis-read the name as ROLEX not HOLEX! For a second or so I was very pleased I had won them. Now we will see how it all turns out!

Cheers, Martin

[DC31k]

On DC31k Said:

Chain drilling is a well-established way of forming cut outs in material.

The tools shown are an improved mousetrap take on chiselling away the webs between the holes.

Chiselling?

Get down to the stores and ask the storeman for an Abrafile kit is what I used to do when I was as an apprentice, presented with jobs like these, that the “skilled men” couldn’t be bothered to do.

[howardb]

On howardb Said:

Get down to the stores and ask the storeman for an Abrafile kit

I think the chain drilling technique pre-dates the introduction of abrafiles by a few years.

A good date-appropriate reference might be ‘Modern Machine Shop Practice’ by Joshua Rose (or other books of that same era), where various chipping and chiselling techniques, as well as the chisels themselves are illustrated.

—

Courtesy of the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/sim_engineering_1956-10-12_182_4727/mode/2up?q=holex+werkzeuge

Engineering, 1956 v.182 Issue 4727 page 466

The address of their UK agent (Trend) is given. I wonder if they are connected to the modern Trend, a woodworking equipment supplier and still based in the same rough locality (https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Trend_Industrial_Equipment).

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Why not just space the holes so there is a very small overlap, then the waste will drop out, no need for Chisels, abrafiles or those tools. Even easier to space the holes these days with DROs so they just overlap. split point stub drull does not need a mark to start and is less likely to wander

The box illustration looks like the holes are too far apart, I expect in practice not more than 10thou would be left in which case the tools would make quite light work of the cuts particularly if the toffee hammer shown was substituted for something a bit heavier.

 

 

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Thanks guys for the helpful info. These are more of a curiosity I think but an interesting insight in how thigs used to be done before milling machines etc.

Cheers, Martin

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, the method that JasonB has shown has been done for many years, I did have a small round steel blank about 12mm or so thick, that my father cut out by this method back in the 1940’s, which was drilled on a small bench drilling machine, which would have been his hand cranked one, or his Bond’s Maximus one that was driven by his overhead line shaft that also ran his lathe, he never had a rotary table, or a milling machine, and so all the holes had to be marked out and centre punched by hand.

Regards Nick.

[Julie AnnParticipant @julieann]

Ordinary 5mm 4-facet twist drill with holes spaced 5mm apart works fine:

Slab is 25″ long; not going to cut that with a hacksaw!

Julie

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Look back far enough in ME and you will see pictures of people cutting with a cold chisel, especially for say taking just half an inch thickness off a bar. Before these new fangled electrickery drills became common chain drilling with a hand drill (that would be a home hade spade drill not a twist drill) was hard work.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

When I use the chain drilling technique with a bit of overlap between holes so the blank falls out I go round twice drilling every alternator hole. That way the first set of holes are made with the drill fully supported in its hole and the second set have two small gaps directly opposite where the drill is unsupported cutting air.

I figure that is a more stable set-up if your spacing is a tadge out or the workshop gremlins get involved. If there is only a gap on one side the drill will tend to run towards it potentially making a mess of the job.

As ever material and tool condition play a major part in deciding whether something a bit less than optimal still works well enough. Free cutting material making nice small chips with a blower to guarantee extraction.

No problem.

Gummy aluminium pulling out long strings that just won’t break and an un evenly sharpened rill with one edge cutting better than the other.

Be prepared for problems.

Found the gummy aluminium issue the hard way by breaking a drill. Careful examination of the drill remnants showed the very tip of one flute to be a bit blunt. Presumably this overheated the aluminium just there which promptly grabbed it forming a classic built up edge with about 1/2″ of chip securely mated to the drill behind it. Jamming was inevitable.

Ever since I’ve always made sure the drill is really well sharpened and that i have both chip evacuation along with lubrication if needed properly set-up.

As the hole has to be cleaned up with a milling cutter anyway I do wonder whether trepanning with the modern breed of high speed carbide cutters would be just as quick overall. Especially if you have CNC. A while back I had to groove the faces of a couple car engine flywheels to accept a different clutch for an engine swop and was impressed by how well and quickly an ordinary, but brand new, YG cutter did the deed. Maybe I’ll try it that way next time.

Clive

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