HF Step drills? Aye or Nay

I have a set that I bought on sale quite a while ago "just in case". I used it recently and was pleasantly surprised at how well they worked.

I used one to punch about 25 3/4" holes in a motorcycle trailer. Works great on thick steel sheetmetal. They are directional, as my girlfriend found out. She was pushing hard and really having a time with it. Then I switched the direction on the drill and they cut like butter.

If you look at 'em you really can't see why that is. Last hole was just as easy as the first. (Was making mounting holes for front wheel loops for the motorcycles.)

Bart D. Hull snipped-for-privacy@inficad.com Tempe, Arizona

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Gunner wrote:

I have them, they work.

Gunner wrote in article ...

In the hands of the Teutels, they appear to be hacker tools......

Yeah, but that's true of ANY tool they pick up... Not including Vinny who actually does appear to take pride in his work, and usually isn't afraid to push back.

-gc

Hard to say what this last comment even means, since I would suspect the Teutels buy the brand name stuff. What I would like to know, and I think Gunner was asking, is, are HF step drill suitable for the: Occasional home shop user. Serious home shop user. The guy that builds stuff every day

Any opinions in those three categories?

Eh, they're certainly buffoons on camera. It would be nice if the idiot producers showed more actual fab and less drama. I saw their Lincoln bike when it was at the state fair auto building here in TX. They were there too, but I waited until they were gone and the crowd dissipated. The bike looked perfectly decent and I did look closely at the welds and whatnot.

Pete C.

I bought some called 3PC Step Drill set, had a sticker on the package that said "Do not open". I did & says they were made in Taiwan. They won't drill paper! Put them on my 40X comparator (SP) & they were ground with no clearance, just like you turned them on a lathe.

If I use my Unibit to start the hole I can't even use these to enlarge it in sheet metal .032 thick. Maybe I got a bad set?

I'd suggest that you push back on this and return them. We let HF get away with too much crap. It's not a case of getting what you pay for. You got *nothing* for your money. It's one thing if the tool wears out quickly, or is not high precision, or whatever. That's getting what you pay for. If it's unusable out of the box, it should be returned.

My $.02, Bob

I've not tried those personally. You may well have received a bad set where the folks at the pris... er... factory skipped a step in order to meet their daily quota and not get executed and their internal organs auctioned off. Bring them back to HF and exchange them.

Pete C.

they hold up really well. just bought 2 more sets yesterday...tony

Ill do that this week. I only need the one that goes through 3/4", but the others I suppose will come in handy someday.

Thanks guys

Gunner

"Deep in her heart, every moslem woman yearns to show us her t*ts" John Griffin

Mine work well on mild steel.

These things really do work well on thin metal (Less than 1/4"). Great for drilling holes in square tube etc. One caveat though, if your hole placement is critical, drill a pilot hole, as the 'centering' on them is not good. (i.e., you can't just line them up on a center punch and get hole on center)

Pete

Pete Snell Department of Physics Royal Military College snipped-for-privacy@rmc.ca --------------------------------------------------------------------- We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows. Robert Frost (1874-1963)