We've got a project coming up where we will more than likely have to drill the heads off of some 5/8" Allen head bolts.
We've done this project before and know a little about what we are getting into. We are removing aluminum plates from a huge gantry mill (16' X 100' bed). When installed, the procedure is to bolt the aluminum plates down with 5/8" Allen bolts, put in a aluminum plug with putty on top of that, and then epoxy to surface. The problem is, they were sloppy with the installation, and didn't seal the bolt off good with plug and putty, and the epoxy ran down on the bolt on some of the bolts.
Like I said, we've don't this before, and fought the epoxied bolts, and they are almost impossible to get out. The last time we used heat that worked on some to soften the epoxy, but didn't work on all of them. We ended up torching the heads on some, but that was a real pain. We even hand drilled some out, but that didn't work well either.
What I'm looking at doing is getting a big steel plate for a base (because the plates are aluminum) and using a mag-drill to drill the heads off of the bolts. What I'm needing to know is what is the best drill bit to drill the heads off of grade 8 Allen bolts.
We've done this project before and know a little about what we are getting into. We are removing aluminum plates from a huge gantry mill (16' X 100' bed). When installed, the procedure is to bolt the aluminum plates down with 5/8" Allen bolts, put in a aluminum plug with putty on top of that, and then epoxy to surface. The problem is, they were sloppy with the installation, and didn't seal the bolt off good with plug and putty, and the epoxy ran down on the bolt on some of the bolts.
Like I said, we've don't this before, and fought the epoxied bolts, and they are almost impossible to get out. The last time we used heat that worked on some to soften the epoxy, but didn't work on all of them. We ended up torching the heads on some, but that was a real pain. We even hand drilled some out, but that didn't work well either.
What I'm looking at doing is getting a big steel plate for a base (because the plates are aluminum) and using a mag-drill to drill the heads off of the bolts. What I'm needing to know is what is the best drill bit to drill the heads off of grade 8 Allen bolts.