16 NEWS
POWER TOOL INVENTOR TALKS MAG DRILLS
Part 1 of 2
Nathan Ford, Area Sales Manager for Fein Power Tools in the UK, discusses what you should look for when purchasing a mag drill and the applications some can now achieve. He will also briefly cover the new cordless/compact mag drills new into the UK market.
Magnetic core drills or “Magdrills” for short are an essential tool for anyone involved in the production and installation of structural steel. They can also be a handy addition to the tool kit of anybody looking to drill larger diameter holes. Core drilling is an extremely efficient process which is faster, quieter and more accurate than twist drilling. Core drilling requires no predrilling or switching over of the tooling, and so drilling times can be reduced by over 50%, with minimal physical effort by the user.
CHOOSING YOUR DRILL The first decisions to be made when buying a Magdrill is the capacity of the machine and what size hole are you likely to be drilling? Next, consider what thickness material you will be drilling? An obvious question yet if you are buying a drill with a 30mm max capacity and on your next job you need to drill a 35mm hole it may have been worthwhile buying the model up from the original
machine. Fein currently offers a large range of Magdrills from 30-80mm capacity, the new cordless Magdrill starting at 35mm.
When it comes to depth of cut, most machines will be able to handle a cutter with a depth of 25mm. For most applications this will suffice but if you have an application which requires either the cutting of thicker material, or the drilling of box sections, or step drilling, it is worth looking for a drill with as large a stroke range as possible. Ranges can vary from 65mm to 315mm so it worth taking this into consideration.
APPLICATIONS
What is the machine going to be used for? You just want to drill a hole into a piece of steel, right? You have chosen your drill based on the size of hole and material thickness, but there may be some other criterias to look at. Most Magdrills are fixed speed and manufactured so in order to keep costs down; designed to drill a hole into steel. Fein invests more into most of its mag drills allowing the motor to deliver variable speed (except the KBB range). This variable speed, and in addition reverse functions are important if you have varying diameter holes to drill or are looking for a Magdrill which can tap,
ream or countersink.
There are many standard providers of mag drill in the market and Fein itself offers Economical models. Its premium models offer variable speeds and the programmes discussed (universal), or automated drill feeds (automatic). Fein was proud to launch two new classes of mag drill in late 2017, ‘Cordless’ and ‘Compact’. The brand new AKBU 35 (cordless) helps end-users who lack mains power on-site or who need to work at heights. If working in confined spaces a specialist right angled Magdrill would be needed, with a minimum head clearance of 169mm. The new ‘compact’ KBC 35 would assist, small enough to help get into tight spots.
Find out more about Fein’s mag drill range including these new machines:
https://fein.com/en_uk/drilling/metal- core-drilling/
WELDING WORLD MAGAZINE | ISSUE 02 | APRIL 2018
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