Need Advice...Drilling Through Carbon Fiber Without Destorying The Part?

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#1

Hey guys,
So I’ve finally solved my problem and can now make perfect parts. My problem I’m having now is drilling the holes in the carbon fiber, I drilled an initial pilot hole and it went fine. When I used the larger bit, it bound for a second a ripped right through it. So basically it took small chunks of the epoxy out with it. You can clearly see the area around the holes that got damaged. Especially in the middle bottom hole.

How do you guys drill your holes so that the surround area of the part does not get damaged?

Thanks a bunch!

#2

CBR600 or 1000? :slight_smile: use a smaller drill ( undersize ), then dremel grind the hole to correct size. back up your part with a sacrificial piece of wood.

#3

+1 always better to use abrasive to make holes, no surface chunking and no fiber to sand out later.

#4

Use the brad point drill bit, the one with two points on the sides not just the center

#5

thanks this will be really useful to me as well very soon

#6

The important thing with drilling carbon fibre is speed. And you need to have a piece of wood underneath if you want to avoid splintering when you break through. But the critical thing is to have a sharp drill bit and high rpm. For this reason, I use a dremel to drill my pieces as it can obtain a much higher rpm than my drill. I’ve also got the dremel workstation which is a god-send when it comes to drilling parts.

Carbon is easy to drill, wait till you start working with kevlar!

#7

Gotcha. Will try use my Dremel instead. Think a rotozip bit might be to much?

Actually for a zx6r 636.

#8

I would recommend a Sandvik CoroDrill 452.1-C H10F series drill, http://www.sandvik.coromant.com/en-gb/products/corodrill_452/Pages/default.aspx. They are multi faceted and are pretty much self pilot drilling. As you drill the angle of the cutting face changes so you’re removing the optimum amount of material meaning there is no biting or tearing. They are not as cheap as a normal drill and only come in damned imperial but they do stay sharp for a very long time, (I’d been using one 10 times a day on average for about 6 months before I noticed it was getting blunt).

#9

http://www.irwin.com.au/tools/browse/drill-bits/unibit-step-drills

#10

This is pretty much the same theory as drilling then grinding the hole to size… but better as it’s just one step with that Sandvik CoroDrill 452.1…C​

same link as posted above… great idea.

#11

http://www.onsrud.com/xdoc/composites
http://www.secotools.com/en-US/Global/Products/Milling/Solid-carbide-end-mills/JC800-composite-range/

or diamond coated abrasive system. Cutoff wheels, core bits, etc