Concrete drilling problems.

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OP
OP
Gareth

Gareth

Guru
It is a JD2 Model 3 tube bender that I have bought: http://www.jd2.com/shop/ and I have made a 100 X 100 steel box section post welded to a 750 X 500 X 10 steel chequer plate. I intended to use 10, 10mm dia Rawl bolts to fix it to the floor ..... after all until I can afford and justify a hydraulic power conversion kit I shall be swinging upon 0.9 mtr long handle to form bends in 16 -25 mm tubing and a 1.8 mtr long handle for 40 and 50 mm chrome alloy steel tubing.

I don't have a forklift, and the most that the post could be hit with is either the sack barrow, Pedi-van or Sammy cycling in too fast through the workshop doors. :ohmy:

It looks like an SDS drill and through bolts will be on the cards first thing Tuesday morning, However, thinking about it the drill produced dust that did come out of the 6mm pilot holes that I managed to get into the floor showing a dark grey colouring rather than the sandy grey concrete colour I was expecting. So tomorrow morning I shall pass a magnet over this dust just to check if I have hit shallow placed re-bars.
 

slowmotion

Quite dreadful
Location
lost somewhere
Whatever fixing you choose, it is a good idea to blow out the dust with an aerosol air-duster before putting it in. Do not use some improvised bit of tubing and your mouth. The concrete dust always ends up behind your eyeball...please believe me... I know..
 

Zoiders

New Member
slowmotion said:
Whatever fixing you choose, it is a good idea to blow out the dust with an aerosol air-duster before putting it in. Do not use some improvised bit of tubing and your mouth. The concrete dust always ends up behind your eyeball...please believe me... I know..
Or

Use a hoover or workshop dust extractor.
 

slowmotion

Quite dreadful
Location
lost somewhere
Never works, mate! To get clear of the fall-out, the tube has to be so long that the air pressure is pitiful. Vacuum cleaners do not work either. Trust me!. I know! Get down to Maplin and spend £6.

:ohmy:
 

Zoiders

New Member
slowmotion said:
Never works, mate! To get clear of the fall-out, the tube has to be so long that the air pressure is pitiful. Vacuum cleaners do not work either. Trust me!. I know! Get down to Maplin and spend £6.

:ohmy:
A good workshop extractor will work, you just have to have a scrabble with screw driver first to uncompact the dust.
 

slowmotion

Quite dreadful
Location
lost somewhere
Zoiders said:
A good workshop extractor will work, you just have to have a scrabble with screw driver first to uncompact the dust.

Why bother...? And actually, no it doesn't. I'm not picking a fight, honest...:ohmy:
 

gbb

Legendary Member
Location
Peterborough
Its funny how you do a job without thinking, but to convey it to others requires a lot of thinking...
Dust in the bottom of the hole isnt a problem, if you drill deeper than the fixing. Ive rarely ever had to extract dust, just lift the drill up and down a few times when you've reached the right depth, the auger action of the drill will lift most of the excess dust.

A piece of tape round the drill will let you know when your at the right depth, make it 1 inch longer than the depth required, that'll allow for any dust to sit in the bottom.

One thing with throughbolts....because you're going to stand and walk (i presume) in the bolted down plate area, the heads will be a slight trip hazard. Unless they all go in perfectly, you'll end up with some of the bolt sitting proud of the nuts. I always use a grinder to cut the excess bolt off flush with the top of the nut.
Also, you want the nuts on as you hammer them in because sometimes the bolt threads will distort at the impact area...if you havnt got the nuts on already, it'll just make everything harder if the thread gets damaged.
Keep the nuts low on the bolt, hammer in until the nuts are just above the plate, then spin the nuts further up the bolt and hammer in again...and keep repeating. That way you wont damage the nuts.

It sounds like a workshop environment Gareth, i assume you have a good heavy hammer...

The irony is, despite how many throughbolts ive fitted, when you look at the expanding collar at the bottom of the fixing....ive never really understood exactly how they work so effectively :laugh::ohmy:
 

XmisterIS

Purveyor of fine nonsense
OP - I'm thinking: set of long Tungsten Carbide bits from 4mm upwards, with a chuck adaptor for the larger bits. Start with a 4mm pilot hole and go up from there, using a normal hammer drill.

That's what I did when I needed to fix a lock plate to the floor of my garage and drill two 14mm bolt holes for the locks when I fitted my new (as was then) garage doors.
 

buddha

Veteran
I had to do something similar when securing my table saw. A cheapo (£40 ish) SDS drill from ebay did the job fine. Though I did start off with 6mm holes and worked my way up.

edit: something similar to this
 
OP
OP
Gareth

Gareth

Guru
Thank you for all the advice guys.

I got the big tube bender bolted down to the floor on Tuesday morning: hired a big SDS drill and bought a 16 mm bit as a consumible item and got the job done in less than 30 minutes.


Now Cargo Cycles can get on and make some Bike frames and Husky racing rigs.

Garethtempfile032.jpg
 
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