Who makes the best long drill bits, 36". We have been buying the ones they sell at home depot and they're good for a couples holes and thats it. Who makes the best and where can i find them??

yeah i've bought really good ones from electric supply house and they get dull after 2 or 3 holes and you cant sharpen them cuz they have the screw top feed.

ive used greenlee, home depot brand,, adi brand and others... caant seem to find a good one

ed

Try Skywalker, they have a brand from BES. I have not tried them yet, but they look good, and have replacable heads. A few guys I know that have tried them, love them. Supposedly with the replacable head you can resharpen the cutters.

Yes we've been using the 54 inch 3/4" bits from greenlee that they sell at home depot and they really suck! Has anyone actually used something that works for more then 3 holes??

My boss recently went to a contractors show and purchased a 13 drill bit index with "special" carbide tips. They can be used with percussion or without. They can drill through Glass, Porcelain, and Baked Ceramic. What sold my boss was when the guy took the biggest bit, a 1/2" and with a hand held drill bored right through the side of a framing hammer head. Now why can't they put that kind of technology into the auger bits?

In case anyone wants to know the set is made by Rodman and is in a black box.

you can sharpen your bits.use a dremmel with a small wheel.I do it all the time,also get a book on tool sharpening from a woodworking store.very useful info in them about your tools.

Buy a couple of spear-zits from labor saving devices. You can also get them from A*I & A@$D as well. They are just basically just like a 3/8" paddle bit. Very tough and very easy to sharpen.

http://www.lsdinc.com

look under speciality tools and then go to bits and hole saws.
Been using their stuff for years, and it holds up well.

I think it is all in the drill. I have used the same nail eater 1" greenlee for a year with a POS Black & Decker drill. A couple of weeks ago I bought a Hole Hawg. Same bit totally different results. Wow this thing rocks! I have saved hours on every prewire. This drill has paid for itself twice in 2 weeks. I am sure my old bit is dull but it tears right thru. I am afraid a new bit would cut thru too fast hitting romex and pipes. I also do not go home in pain after a big prewire.
I watched sparky do an entire prewire with a Dewalt 18v. It took him over a week to prewire hi voltage in a 2500sq ft cabin. He had the advantage when working on the rickety scaffolding but I kicked his butt on the ground. I had to chuckle when I came back a week later to document my wiring and he was still at it. As I was leaving he asked about my new fangled drill.

I've had decent luck with the Spear-Zits. They come razor sharp (nearly had to get stiches after carelessly handling one) and can be sharpened easily. The only downside to those bits is that if you should by chance hit a nail, they're immediately destroyed and FUBAR'D.

Greenlee.....

I lost track of how many hundreds that I've donated to that company, and yeah, three holes seems about right.

New England Carbide aka, the stuff that Menards sells.........

Three holes for them too.

Aside from the cutting head becoming damaged or dull, the real culprit of any of the above drills lies in the ease of the shaft to become bent. Once you bend the shaft, it's curtains.

I agree... Except I don't use a Dremel. Not as much finesse with a motorized grinding wheel (even a small one) as you get with a good metal file in a trained hand.


Or grow up in a community where it seems like half of the residents are machinists, and learn how to take care of your tools.

I had a Kennedy tool chest by the time I was 12...
I still own micrometers and calipers (mostly inherited), but I haven't taken them out of the box in many, many years.

Agreed. The motor is what does the work. My 24v DeWalt is as powerful as a corded drill. I can run an 18" long 1" auger through 6" of wood. The nail-eaters are tough.


To be fair to the under-equipped guy, I'm willing to bet you that he had a few more holes to drill and wires to run than you did. Having done plenty of both power and LV wiring, I can say that power wiring is by far more labor-intensive.

An angle drill is the best for high-torque drilling, because the body is the handle. I also have a Milwaukee angle drill and a 30" angled extension. I can drill vertically or horizontally overhead and vertically down without a ladder or having to bend, respectively.

Yeah you are right. Both of us had to take all of our runs up and over a 30' high ceiling. Even the alarm guys were complaining about the crazy design. I did a 6k sq ft house in the same time I did this ski lodge looking hunting lodge. Sparky had to run wires in some places I would have never climbed.
I am not knocking him at all but in the time he drilled 1 hole and hit a nail and then started over I drilled 3 holes.
I guess I am still excited about my new toy!

I used to think about this, too, until I concluded that the bits couldn't do any better, so the cost of making the holes was one third the cost of a bit. I would let my bits get dull, then keep on running them, making drilling slower and making more smoke.

But then I was puzzling over how to get faster at prewire drilling while working at the home of a client who owns a tool company. I finally asked the question the right way: what the heck do you do so that you have a sharp drill that goes through wood like butter?

You don't dull the drill, that's what.

You take a sharp drill, run the corded drill at high speed, and you gently run it through the wood as though you were slicing through butter. If you push real hard, especially if your drill speed is low, you will dull the bit faster and end up with a Boy Scout fire, or at least the smoke. And the bit might get hot enough to lose its temper :)

I have yet to see a cordless that has the speed of my Milwaukee Hole Shooter( 15 years old and only had to replace the cord so far). That speed reduces the amount of wood bitten out with every revolution, and, hey, there's a WAY faster breeze over the bit to keep it cool!

That said, if one of those Greenlee drills will only do three holes but you are pushing the crap out of it, spin it at 8000 RPM and gently slide it through the wood. If you still only get ten holes, well, that's the cost of the hole, but you've made it go from three to ten.

Are you saying I should run my Hole Hawg on high speed? Man that scare the SH&T out of me. I think that would be like a bad ride at the fair only with some added blood and broken bones.

For wood it seems that faster is better. For metal you slow it down and dont let the bit over heat. Either way you always let the bit do the work. I have been using BES with the replaceable heads from D#L D*st I can usually get about 8 holes per head unless I hit a nail then its done. Every night (almost) I take the heads off and resharpen them. I can sharpen them about 6 times before they start chipping the cutting edge then I toss em.