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Woodworking Tip: How to Drill Pilot Holes... Without a Drill Bit!

By Rain Noe - November 18, 2013

in Hand Tools

Meet my friend Brad, he's a pilot

Meet my friend Brad, he's a pilot

The drill bits I break the most are the 1/8" ones I use for pre-drilling. Probably because I keep buying those cheap Ryobi bits (I like the hex shank), and I never stepped up to a more expensive bit because I assume I'm going to break it anyway.

Well, consider my game changed. From woodworking madman Izzy Swan comes this useful tip: How to drill pilot holes without using a drill bit at all!

Jeez Louise! The brad nail I could see working, but the framing nail? I wouldn't believe it if I hadn'ta seen it. And while I guess this is more of an "If you're in a pinch" tip as opposed to a permanent replacement for drill bits, this is bound to come in handy when you're working on something after the hardware store's already closed.

o

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Drill Bit Warehouse

8 years ago

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The first place to begin is that the place wherever you would like to drill the hole. If the hole is to be trained in wood then you'd want the pencil to mark the spot wherever you'd drill the hole. Drill Bit Warehouse is one in the entire most effective website that gives sets of drill bits that creates your far more easier and comfortable for hole the drill.

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Sean

11 years ago

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I would think that you would break any 1/8" bit if you pressed down that hard. Jeeezzz man. A drill bit cuts and removes material via the flutes... It is not a punch press. Maybe don't bear down so hard and let the drill do the work and your bits will last a little longer. What you have made here is a trocar point that is commonly used in medical practice to cut through the tough outer shell of bone (ceramic like). You can see this in things like Kirschner wires (K-wires) and Steinmann pins used in Orthopedics. If you don't mind that you aren't clearing the material out of the hole below the initial cut I guess go for it... Maybe it would make the pull out strength of a screw for less dense material even stronger by compacting the material around the hole! But it will probably make more dense material prone to splitting...
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E

11 years ago

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nice tip but the dude is kind of hectic with the drill bits and nails and screws and all. epileptic to watch.
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Mike Parsons

11 years ago

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Erm... doesn't everyone do this? I used to use a bradawl, then lost it (as you do) and used a nail in a drill...

I should have made a youtube video about it!

Oh well,

Cheers,

Mike
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Mike Nelson Pedde

11 years ago

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I've used this technique before, especially where, as with the brad nails above, there's a risk of splitting the wood. Another good idea in such cases is to take the SIDE of the hammer (not the face, please!) and, while holding the head of the nail against something solid, blunt the tip of the nail. Nails are clipped to have a sharp point, but such a point pushes aside the wood fibres as the nail is driven in. By essentially flattening the point of the nail, you force it to crush the wood fibres instead - leading to less chance of splitting when nailing near wood edges.

Mike.
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Darren

11 years ago

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A straight section of wire coat hanger works as well. Cut to a point with a sharp pair of diagonals and you're good to go. * it's easy to hammer out the end to make a mini spade bit as well...
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