What can be used to power a big auger bit?

[Raphael]

It's a little slow but it should do the job provided it's got the torque to keep turning.
After all auger its work fine in a hand brace.

[mike_van]

We were in Alaska, 1989 - went to the McCarthy & the old Kennecott Copper Mine Massive wood framed buildings from 1905 or so, somebody did a lot of hand drilling on these - Link to Kennecott

[TW]

Raphael
I think the motor is 750 watt three phase and that geared down to 50 or 60 rpm surely gives some torque.
I am just worried that it would drill as slowly as i drill with the T-auger.

[Norwiscutter]

The only thing that I have come close to breaking with my hole hawg is my wrists. Like Don said, when these drills snub up, the wind down time can seem like forever. There are certain tools that I have that really seem to collect dust in the shop but boy do they come in handy when needed.   If you don't already have a 1/2 inch electric drill, I would think that it would be a more of an all around tool, although it wouldn't be too happy with the 1 1/2 inch holes you are talking about.  When it comes to electric drills, I have always stayed with Milwaukee because they have a reputation for being bombproof.

What about finding an older benchtop drill press and fabricating something that would suit your purpose?

[Raphael]

Cool link Mike...
Doesn't look like the old Kennecott mine has changed much since we were up there in 1969, that's where I accidently smashed my sister's big toe with a rock while trying to kill a bee.  :
I wonder if she's gotten over it yet.  :D

Raphael
I think the motor is 750 watt three phase and that geared down to 50 or 60 rpm surely gives some torque.
I am just worried that it would drill as slowly as i drill with the T-auger.

If you can keep a T-auger turning at 50-60 rpm I'm seriously impressed. 
  I think your motor will drill very close to boring machine speeds, just sitting here swinging my arms at what feels like my usual pace I came up with 54 rpm.

[TW]

Sopunds good
;) If I was that fast with the T-auger it would be no need for a machine.

I will take a closer look at the motor and try to find out what the actual rpm is. The scrapdealer did not know for sure and there was no sign on the gearbox. He wants about 80 euro (100$) for it and that is cheap compared to 700 euro (840$)for a electrical drill of that size. Prize includes "money back" if there is any invisible damage to the unit. He offered to barter with some scrap iron I want to get rid of.
An aquintance who is elecrican offered to do the electical work if I help him with some carpentry.

[Greg]

Why can't you just use a (relatively inexpensive) 1/2" drill with a spade bit?

I just bought a new dewalt for $169. It WILL break your wrist. Irwin makes these for up to 1 1/2" wide for about $5. They drill just dandy even through the hardest driest oak. This simple setup + my corner chisel = my "poor man's" mortising machine.

(Sure it like a makita or mafell chain mortiser, but doing this part time and weekends it just doesn't make economic sense to cough up that $2 -4 k)

Since I use alot of reclaimed/dry beams I have essentially given up on hand cranked augers and self feeding bits. With green or soft woods, they can work pretty well. Otherwise, even as only a hobbysit, after wasting alot of time with augers, I've concluded: too much of a pain to mess with.

Just my opinion, of course.

Greg

[SwampDonkey]

I was wondering if you could rig something up with a used Stihl or Husky thinning saw. Just take the shaft out that goes to the blade, and put a shaft of the auger bit inside the tube instead. You could shorten the tube some with a hacksaw.  A Husky 260 would be best, more torque. That way you have a throttle control and everything.  ;D

[Jim_Rogers]

60 rpm are way to fast for an auger bit, let alone a powered unit.

Jim Rogers

[SwampDonkey]

Probably burn up the wood. I used to set my drill on slow, it is a Makita with a screw knob on the throttle to control the rpms.

I was thinking of an auger used in digging post holes in the ground.  ;D

[slowzuki]

As an extension to this thread, a geared non-clutched drill will cause you lots of pain turning a 1.5" hole saw into 6" well casing for installing a pitless adapter.  I will be using the clutched rotary hammer next time.  Also, if you have to drill two holes, and the well is a flowing artesian, drill the top one first, the water cools the teeth and lets it cut well.

[TW]

Did I explain something wrong?

I plan for drilling 1 1/2" diameter holes in LOGS. I need a faster way to make the pegholes when doing logbuilding. The T-auger is too slow and the big milwaukee and makita drills are too expensive.
Power tools are not for free over here.


There is no arthesian water in our pine nor spruce ;D ;D Is it THAT wet in America? ;D ;D

In fact I did not know that you use something called "auger" for drilling wells. I have never heard of anybody drilling wells without big special machinery that can drill through stone.
Our soil is very rocky so I guess it would bend any of your augers in the first two metres.

[Jim_Rogers]

TW:
Have you ever seen one of these over there?



I could sell you one, but the shipping might be a lot....

Here is a photo of one being used to bore a hole through a round timber:



Man powered, no electricity needed, completely portable and quite....



Jim Rogers

[SwampDonkey]

Actually  ;D , if your good at looking for signs of artesian wells then an auger might be all you need.  ;D I don't claim to be an expert finding them, but I have found one on the farm. Dome-like hill, water seepage at the toe of the hill. There is one farm down the road that is full of springs to and all they had was a hand dug well for decades, still used. They also have 4 spring fed fish ponds. My cousin also has a hand dug well in a spring that fed two houses and a cattle trough for water. ;D

I think there are threads on here for well digging and there are a few implements that can be used without heavy equipment to dig a well quite cheaply. ;)

Water water everywhere.  8)

Nice drill Jim. 

[slowzuki]

Sorry TW, don't get too frustrated.  Turning a large diameter metal cutting hole saw is a similar load and can bind up the same as drilling big holes in timbers.  I injured my hand trying it with a non-clutched drill on this past weekend.

I saw recently some cheap chinese drill presses for 60$ that looked like they could be fitted with an auger and a cheap fan speed control.

Did I explain something wrong?

I plan for drilling 1 1/2" diameter holes in LOGS. I need a faster way to make the pegholes when doing logbuilding. The T-auger is too slow and the big milwaukee and makita drills are too expensive.
Power tools are not for free over here.


There is no arthesian water in our pine nor spruce ;D ;D Is it THAT wet in America? ;D ;D

In fact I did not know that you use something called "auger" for drilling wells. I have never heard of anybody drilling wells without big special machinery that can drill through stone.
Our soil is very rocky so I guess it would bend any of your augers in the first two metres.

[TW]

Slowzuki
Thanks for the warning.

Jim Rogers
I have never seen one of those. I know they exist in America.

You others
The warning sets of an idea.
I could connect the bit to the shaft by means of two short pipes fitting one into the other. One would be welded to the shaft and the other to the shank of the bit. Through those pipes I would drill a hole. In that hole I would have a wooden peg of hardwood. When the drill jams the peg would break and the machine spin free. I could use small diameter pegs in the beginning and widen the hole for bigger pegs until they barely resist the torque.
That system would save the cost of a chuck as well.

Would it work. Critisism please.

[TW]

Here comes a scetch of a section of the system I tried to describe.



The power comes from above in the picture and goes to below

[Greg]

Does this help?

1 1/2" inch x 13" spade bit:

Click here for link to spade bit
Greg

[beenthere]

TW
The idea you have should work, and is similar to a shear pin used on a power train. With a pin rotating, one would want to be real careful to not get clothing tangled in the pin, wrapping it up quickly and doing some body damage.

If finding a power drill with an adjustable clutch is not possible, and machining/fabricating this approach is possible, then we'd be interested in how it works out for you.

[TW]

Greg
I have tested a slightly smaller spade bit but it did not work. I do often drill more than 1" straight down and the chips do not find their way out of the hole.

Beenthere
Of cause I can chop of the pin smooth with the pipe. I did not think of that. Maybe I have to make a guard out of some aluminium scraps.


I have a neighbour who is partowner of a matal lathe and he turns any parts for me really cheap because I help him with his house renovation really cheap.
I will think about this for a while.

The factory made machines cost more than two weeks pay so they are not an option. They do sell Milwaukee and Makita and Dewalt big drills here too but I am too poor. In general you can take the prize in USA times 2 to 4 and get the prize for a similar power tool in Finland.
We have 230 volt 50 hertz so private import is not an option. Second hand ones turn up now and then but they are usually 40 to 50 years old and used a lot and still expensive. There was a factory in Helsinki who made theese big drills in the 50-ies.

I am still open to critisism. I often critisize things very openly and directly so I expect the same kind of critical evaluation back.

[Raphael]

  One drawback I see to the shear pin idea is that no two logs are the same, you may need a whole assortment of pins to deal with different densities of wood.  You'll also want variable speed control, the jerk going from a dead stop to full on will probably shear off a pin that's otherwise strong enough.
  What is the density of the logs you work with there?  I've been thinking along the lines of EWP but Jim's comments about auger speed got me thinking and he's right 50 rpm could destroy a 1.5" auger in the other woods I've bored except spruce.


  That Ajax boring machine in Jim's post (top picture) has one really nice design feature, aside from not being restricted by available current.  ;)
  The chuck is open all the way through so it can take the bit from many T-Augers without having to cut them down, really handy when boring deeper than the clearance under the chuck.  Though going deeper than the flutes on the auger will evenually cause a chip jamb.  I'm wondering how much shipping would be to get it there.

  A way to get shipping costs down would be to ship only the metal portions of a machine and fabricate the wood portions there, I've seen several that the wood was degraded but still had solid castings.  A Snell, Swan, or Sweet, models like the second picture in Jim's post, have less iron and steel (especially the Snell and Swan fixed machines).

[TW]

I did not think of that jerk when starting. Otherwise it may be possible to beef up the shear pin until it barely lasts in ordinary use but that jerk would still break it. Thanks for proving me wrong before I spent any money.

We use pine and spruce for logbuilding. Pine weighs 480 kg pr cubic metre and spruce 440 kg per cubic metre. Spruce has very hard knots. I cannot recalculate it to imperial units because I do not know which unit you use.

I can choose to use either a cut of old auger or use a modern ship auger depending on which one is more suitable. I have both kinds of bits in store already.

It should be a possible solution to make a boring machine or buy one without wood from abroad. I just cannot see the big gain compared to the T-auger.

Two other logbuilders I have talked with use big electrical machines that run at about 150 and 250 rpm. They have both been old machines with no adjustable clutch nor any safety devices. My common sense tells that slower is safer and the parts I have on hand are considerably slower. I know I do it at my own risk. I do also have another slower gearbox on hand. It runs at 46 rpm.

I cannot still understand the rpm issue fully.

[Jim_Rogers]

I could give you a price quote for shipping a boring machine to Finland, if I had your postal code.
Can you give that to me?

Bore a hole with a t-handle auger and count how many full turns you make in a minute.
I'll bore the same size hole, the same depth with a boring machine and I'll tell you how many seconds (or minutes) it took me......

Jim Rogers

[Don P]

The clutches on mine have slipped at 75 ft lbs. Wood is unpredictable as a shear pin, but some metal dowel of some diameter will give you a reliable shear. It might be something like brass brazing rod. You could test with a torque wrench and a mocked up sample if you wanted precise, but the goal is to have it shear just below your strength. My clutches go off often, the time loss could eat up any savings in initial cost. I do see the problem though, the clutched drill costs me about 1/2 weeks pay.

[john_boylan]

Any way to rig an electric motor up with pulleys and a belt that would slip at the appropriate moment?

John