I just finished building the handrail on my deck ru-vid.comUgkxfQ5_mgwq6PcudJvAH25t-I4D-3cTPz4z and used this great little router to clean up the top rail before the final sanding and stain. It was light weight but packed lots of power. Either size battery didn't seem to make it top heavy and I'm a 64 yr old women so I really appreciated how easy it was to use...................... CORDLESS only way to go !!
This tool in this video is a Watts Drill Bit and floating chuck, using reuleaux triangle method, made by Watts Brothers Tool Works out of Wilmerding Pennsylvania. They do not have a web site nor a online brochure or catalog that i can find. If you would like contact them you must google the company name. Good luck!
I have been a qualified production engineer and I must confess I have never seen drill that drill square holes. Thank you for adding to my education. When people ask me how to drill a square hole in metal I will now tell them. All I knew about was mortisers for wood. And to think I used to bribe out holes in metal, drill in each corner and then use a file after drilling a larger hole second. Brilliant !
This is really interesting! I have a couple of quick questions. First, how come the guide doesn't quickly dull or damage the flutes on the bit? Second, Does the bit float anywhere along the x-y axis or does it move in a specific pattern? I would love to see a high speed slo-mo shot of the bit's motion. Anyway, really cool video, thanks for posting!!
Hi Eddie thanks for your question, you are correct. The square size is dictated by the square so a 10mm requires a 10mm square die. The trick is the "floating" cutting tool needs one less cutting edge than the shape it is producing, in this case three cutting edges for four corners (square). If you Google "rotary broaching" you will find lots of examples. Thanks for your post.
The things are the bane of my existence. I’ve used them hundreds of times to put a “drive hole” into the end of a hardened worm gear. We buy the gears set worm & rings and modify them. I’d love to perform the op in an annealed state but it’s not feasible. The end is about 45 Rockwell hardness. We insert the worm into a fixture that has a guide plate over the end. The pilot hole size is critical to make the drill work hard enough to get into the corners. Alignment and squareness of the head, adequate thrust, feed, speed and flood coolant are imperative. The Watts drill typically lasts one to three parts before resharpening. The drill takes two months to obtain or factory resharpen so we do it in house much of the time. Once you start the operation you have very little control over size, taper and corner sharpness so you cross your fingers and pray. Whenever I can I try to use a rotary broach instead but sometimes it’s just not doable because of the extreme thrust that op requires exceeds capacity of my equipment on large holes.
This looks like magic. Even though I watched an animation of how it works before I watched this video, my mind still couldn't comprehend how something spinning could drill a square hole.
Yeah, it would be great if one of those "ultra-slow-motion" RU-vid channels could get this on video. Witchcraft should always be captures in ultra-slow-motion video. ;)
If you had known the Reuleaux triangle, it wouldn't have been a surprise: a triangle exists with equidistances along the lines perpendicular to its perimeter boundary...
Hi Tommie, actually the whole process can be done in a milling machine with an endmill. This is meant to show an alternative way without a milling machine. Thanks for watching.
Yes the process is the same but the die (or guide) is 6-sided. It is shown at the beginning of the video. Yes it will work on a blind hole but it does require a pilot hole. Thanks for your question.
hey, please tell me name of tool and is it available in india..?? i want to make square hole in MS piece with thickness of 35 mm can it possible with this tool? please help me...
I'm wondering how the "guide" doesn't damage the bit (and vice-versa)? And what if I wanted to drill a piece of metal that's 1/2" wider or 1" taller -- doesn't seem like that jig would work...
The bit is not "floating" its pivoting on a cam system. It's not spinning in a concentric circle. It's being forced off axis to make square cuts. It's expensive but effective.
it's basically like a slotter and the tool finds its own "centre". The square guide is why the hole is square. Not really a cool video more the tool than anything new here.
The short answer is it depends on how hard the material is, like any drill the harder the material being cut the shorter the time between sharpening. the pilot or guide is hardened steel. The setup in the video has been around and in use for years. Thanks for your question.
It would be great if one of those "ultra-slow-motion" RU-vid channels could get this on video. Witchcraft activities should always be captures in ultra-slow-motion video. ;) Anyway, thank you so very much for this video and greetings from Portugal.
Amazing. I heard someone talking about this, and I thought they were joking. Your explanation of the process is perfect - easy to understand. So what is the square template/pattern made of - KRYPTONITE?
+Jon Lanier Like what? I want to drill a 1/4" square hole in mild steel that's about 5/8" thick. Slightly round corners Is not that big of a deal, I could use a file and maybe the square HSS tool blank to punch out square.
The cutter is obviously hard or hardened material, as I would assume the guide. How does this not destroy the cutter since both have to be equally hard. Also, what were you using to hold the work piece stationary in the fixture
Sorry for the slow reply. Great question, the cutting action is on the end of the drill and there is a starting hole so as long as the material to be cut isn't harder than the drill it shouldn't damage the drill. The drill floats on the x-y axis, the trick to the sharp corners is having on less cutting edges on the drill than corners required. Thanks for posting. Google rotary broaching.
Interesting, close but no cigar for me. That's got to cost quite a bit. I need four 1" square holes in 1/8 thick aluminum plate. Still hoping to find a die to place on a press, this is a great tool, just not practical to buy.
Can we drill a rectangle using an extended version of this drill? Like for exemple rectangle with width of 5 and height of 10 milimeters? Improvement to the current design would eliminate the guidance template if we can have a stable center guidance drill. This can be achieved if our main drill/milling drill have inside another drill decoupled?
My Mom was the book keeper and shipping department for Watts Brothers Tool Works in Wilmerding PA for 27 years starting in the early 1950's. Her boss, Charles Watts, was the son of the inventor of this technology. They held a patent on the invention, which, as demonstrated in the video, consisted of a floating chuck, a special drill bit and a guide plate. Their customers mainly were Ingersoll Rand and ship builders for the military who needed to make holes in steel plates that were too thick to broach or punch a hole through. The company is still alive today. Side story...one of my Mom's coworkers won lots of bar bets claiming he could drill a square hole. He carried a bar of soap, a small floating chuck, a guide plate and drill bit with him...turned the drill bit with his fingers and drilled a square hole in the bar of soap.
I love the sentiment here but in our Engineer's heart of hearts we simply know we cannot truly call this drilling as it is not cutting the hole from single point of rotation.. I think you would actually call it offset broaching if you were honest with yourself. University of Wisconsin Platteville ME grad here, loving life as a project engineer sizing big-boy mechanical power transmission components. ..and no matter what an EE says, never run a VFD with a fluid coupling 😁 if you know you know!
Meeeh....All great tools that a machine shop has....... I'm still missing a clear visual or explanation on the actual engineering to get the tool (rather, drill bit) to accomplish the job. All I saw was a drill bit drilling, and walah! the hole was square.....let me see the bit do the drilling.
If the drill binded to what it was drilling, could it then start to cut the template? I’m thinking that it doesn’t cut the template because it’s able to bounce off of it. Does it eventually make the drill dull where it touches the template?
I’m sorry, even though I’m seeing it I still can’t comprehend what is happening here. But I don’t need to. I just need to find someone like this who understands it and pay them a small hefty sum of money to make my square holes.
By using a cutting tool with one less cutting edge than the sides of a triangle (two cutting edges) an triangle shape can be made. You would need a triangle shaped guide. It can also be done by hand.
This is a Reuleaux triangle. The only shape other than a circle that cannot fit through its own hole! Sandwiched between 2 plates it will roll completely smoothly, just like a circle. Quite amazing. Remember the Wankel rotary engine in the old Mazda RX-8? Yep, the 'piston' was a Reuleaux triangle. Make a manhole cover out of a Reuleaux triangle and it can't fall through its hole either! And you can use them to drill square holes. Or any even sided polygon hole. Quite amazing. The drill bit to do this was patented a century ago.
@@machiningmoments Thank you for the square hole demonstration. I've never actually seen it done, so very interesting. Something a person would think is impossible - a square drill bit!? Who woulda thunk it!
This is very old, it was made by the Watts Brothers Company. I believe in Pennsylvania. They are still in business. You could try a Google search for them.
Great vid, thanks for posting! This is a nice tool! It will cut blind holes, a situation in which broaching is difficult at best! The pilot is hardened tool steel and the triangular drill is very likely high speed steel. The cutting edges of the drill contact the surfaces of the pilot during use. How fast does wear occur?
Fantastic bit of kit. Is it as effective with steel? Can you give me the trade name of the jig and drill so I can get one please. Many thanks, Gordon, Australia
Hi Jay, if you look through the messages below the video one of the viewers knew of a company that makes them. I believe it was Watts Brothers I think the were in Connecticut...somewhere in the Eastern USA. Thanks for watching.
Sir, I need to chamfer an oblong hole. 0.5 mm chamfer in steel. Can I use this floating drill head for this purpose? I will make the guide oblong instead of square. Will it work?
I don't think it will, the guide drives the diameter of the tool. Your chamfer would need to be on the end of the tool and the end of the hole. There would be nothing to guide the tool. I'm thinking CNC may be your solution.
