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Double-ended drills, how were they used?

Cannonmn

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Jun 25, 2016
Caliper jaws are 8" apart for scale. Were the drills shown used only in one type of machine? How were they mounted? Note that long end has sharp, protruding margins but short end does not, and short end is always smaller diameter than large end.

The black object is marked Vek-tek. I'm guessing it is a tool holder for some CNC machine. Cutters on lower left mystify me. They appear to be brazed carbide.
img_5920.jpg
 
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The black thing marked Vee - tek. Does the plunger shaft push into the body.

I think it might be a hydraulic damper. First generic google photo I could find.

18835-9412969.jpg


Regards Phil.
 
Caliper jaws are 8" apart for scale. Were the drills shown used only in one type of machine? How were they mounted? Note that long end has sharp, protruding margins but short end does not, and short end is always smaller diameter than large end.
Measure them. Or grab a handful of common black iron or galvanized steel pipe nipples. See if the sizes match either the ID's or OD's with clearance.

It would not be rocket science to grasp them in a kit of sized sleeves the OD of which could be driven with a common pipe-threading kit's hand ratchet. Humankind did not always have mini portable gen sets, battery tools, air-compressors, nor power of any kind but human muscles, out in the field. Muscle had to tote and carry as well, so multi-use tools that took less space and weight were tolerable, even if sub-optimal.

Cutters on lower left mystify me. They appear to be brazed carbide.

They are NOT from a Lee-Norse continuous mining machine's "chains" but the principle is similar. Might be from a Ditch Witch cutter-carrying chain, pavement recycling scarifiier chain 'belt", or a cousin to such, for example.
 
The black thing marked Vee - tek. Does the plunger shaft push into the body.

I think it might be a hydraulic damper. First generic google photo I could find.

18835-9412969.jpg


Regards Phil.

Thanks, and shame on me for not asking Mr. Google, which I finally did just now. Seems they are hydraulic workholding clamps, here are specs for some from that company. I'm guessing the first entry in both halves of the table in the "body thread" column is a typo, what do you think? Entry is "1 1/6-16." Maybe should be "1 1/16-16?" I've never seen anyone use 1/6 in this context, but what do I know?

Vektek: Products: Hydraulic: TuffCam™ Swing Clamps: Threaded Body
 
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shame on me for not asking Mr. Google

Google wudda found you a ton of suppliers still shipping 'double ended' twist-drills too.

Downside is all the modern ones have solid, unfluted, center bodies for gripping in conventional chucks.

IF your ones are what I "suspect but cannot (be bothered to) prove" they are, they were hand-cranked, power "transmitted" by a pair of ignorant set-screws. Thereby limited - very much so - to light duty // emergency field work, including some that a common reamer wudda often have been better suited to, not used for serious industrial drilling atall.

"Modern times" as they are, I'd also "suspect but cannot be bothered prove" that if you are selling wandering junk-monger odds and sods, you'd need a different clientele, but would make more money, faster, selling double ended dildos.

So there!

:D
 
What sorcery is this?

Flutes on DIN hss-R (rollgewalzt) drills are made by rolling. Never tought about it but is it possible that this was continous process and rolling mill spit out fluted drill body 100 meters at a time?

Somebody socialized the drill blanks before they were welded to shaft/taper?
 
Interesting sidenote: never seen roll milled drill in cheap chinese imports, those are always fully grind types.
 
Interesting sidenote: never seen roll milled drill in cheap chinese imports, those are always fully grind types.

The surface finish might be. Dalian Top Eastern owning most of the Grand Old US brands, and being largest drill-maker on-Planet for some years arredy, I'd not much want to guess at the variety of brands, quality, and price-points they covered to GET to be the biggest.
 
The surface finish might be. Dalian Top Eastern owning most of the Grand Old US brands, and being largest drill-maker on-Planet for some years arredy, I'd not much want to guess at the variety of brands, quality, and price-points they covered to GET to be the biggest.

Unlike German (and old ussr) roll milled drills the chinese ones are usually pretty straight. (Bigger sizes like over 1/2" could be also roller on chinese imports, never paid that much attention on those)
Edit: roll forged in english might be more correct term instead of roll milled.
 
Unlike German (and old ussr) roll milled drills the chinese ones are usually pretty straight. (Bigger sizes like over 1/2" could be also roller on chinese imports, never paid that much attention on those)
Edit: roll forged in english might be more correct term instead of roll milled.

Aye, it would be.

FWIW-not-much dept, in an older write-up of Dalian Top Eastern they WERE bragging that they used the latest generation of German made and Japanese-made equipment to produce their drills. Also that on at least one of the Old Line US makers they bought, they kept the factory in the USA, kept the employees, and made a serious investment in the best new equipment that the previous US owners had not made.

You want cheap? I'm sure they have it, and it is hanging on the pegboard at any Big Box.

You want GOOD, they have that also, and experienced mill supply houses still know the difference.
 
Someone speculated we were selling; no, no time and no need. We're finally doing a triage on the stuff we got many months ago at the Richmond shop liquidation. There wasn't time there to be too selective, it was like"ok if I take that wall of shelving and contents, how much?" Then it took a couple of days to toss the contents into/onto whatever pallets/boxes could be found and those onto the trailer. The current triage involves separating the stuff into that usable now in our shop which is placed near workbenches (like hand tools, straight-shank drill bits, common taps.) Then the stuff occasionally usable in future (like reamers, odd-size taps, drill bits with Morse tapers the size of average man's forearm) is placed within human reach on lower pallet rack shelves. Then that which we can't identify or know we'll use once in a lifetime (mills and tool holders that don't fit any machine we have) exiled to top of pallet racks, awaiting a spike in the price of scrap HSS.
 
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Carbide tipped bits are almost certainly stump grinder teeth. Never seen double ended drills though!
 
awaiting a spike in the price of scrap HSS.

Expensive "wait", those can be.

Marginal cost of that space, its utilities & taxes, also that of your management/admin time f*****g with it, is exactly the same as if you were storing fine wines, precious oil paintings, Gold, or Platinum.

Which obsolete tooling ... just ain't.

Same advice as a Mess Sergeant, rear area off a muddy battlefield, or the Chef of a Five-star Grand Hotel tells his cooks and KP's:

"Clean as you GO!"
 
IF your ones are what I "suspect but cannot (be bothered to) prove" they are, they were hand-cranked, power "transmitted" by a pair of ignorant set-screws. Thereby limited - very much so - to light duty // emergency field work, including some that a common reamer wudda often have been better suited to, not used for serious industrial drilling atall.

:D

Looks like there is flats grind on the smaller end so they might fit to some sort of socket indeed.
 
Well well ... I think I found exactly what those are. "Shankless roll-forged drill" hit the jackpot:
Popular Mechanics - Google Books

So its a shankless roll-forged drill developed by Ford for wartime efforts, used together with coupling socket.
 
Good find -- but there's a difference between the Ford shankless drills (which have a holding taper) and the those pictured (which appear to be cylindrical at both ends ). Still somewhat of a mystery to me.
Holding taper on ford drills(or Republic Drill&Tool co) is the separate sleeve as far as I can see from popular mechanics articles. Popular mechanics article even show similar flats on the end of the smaller end. Here was another pic of the drills
Popular Mechanics - Google Books

Popular Mechanics - Google Books
 
The double ended drills with full length flutes look like a prank.

Among a zillion other things, we made hydraulic manifolds for surface mount valves where deep drilled passages intersected cross drilled holes where chips packed. We twisted off many an extension drill at the neck. The drills came out easy enough and the extra long fluted potion and the taper were scrapped.

If some prankster sharpened both ends of the fluted parts, dusted up and stashed the full length fluted, double ended drills in the racks and racks of jigs and fixtures, sooner or later someone would find them and start a long investigation of what job they were used on and which machine, etc. Old timers would argue, management pontificate, everyone would speculate, and I, if I were the prankster, I would giggle and wiggle in secret delight until I could stand it no longer.and tell a buddy who though sworn to secrecy, would pass it around until someone ratted me out.

It would be the perfect prank. Not only would it disrupt the complacency but stir the mud beneath it at no real cost to productivity or harm to people or things. It would become a legend for older guys to cackle over and new guys to emulate. The perp would get an eye-twinkle ass-chewing and probably if management was fair find himself held in special regard for a time carefully watched for further signs of creativity but in a constructive sense.
 
The double ended drills look like a prank.

Pretty large-scale prank if Popular mechanics production numbers are correct. 100 million drills is quite some.
But on the heat of WW2 there was plenty of things to drill or "drill" ;)
 








 
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