Mill/drill bit needed!

Hello

We need a good mill/drill bit to our weapon.

Where can we find a 20mm in diameter and at least 200mm long or similar bit? The attach part of the bit must be completely cylindrical (understood?).

Like these?

http://www.toolsunlimited.co.uk/acat...mm_HSS_98.html

Unfortunately a HSS ( High Speed Steel ) Cutter/Drill will be much to brittle.
It will shatter in battle and is therefore illegal.

Agreed- I would find a friendly model engineer/grinder who should be well versed in making such things from Silver Steel, which you can then harden to the required level using the standard discolouration-ometer If my memory serves me correctly (which it probably doesnt at 7.50 on a saturday morning) quenching it when its yellow will give the hardest coating, but will be more brittle than quenching it when blue, which will be tougher but less hard. Youll be wanting it towards the bluer end me thinks.

Ok, so HSS is illegal and Eddy suggest a custom made one. This doest sound very like an agreeable piece of news :-(.

Did not think that this would be such a problem.
There must be some thing else to use with good results. A drill/mill is not a new weapon in robot wars, what have other robots been using?

A drill/mill might not be a new weapon ....but I suspect that they may well have been illegal.

I.E. ......Nobody checks weapons materials.

Remember Pussy Cats saw shattering? .....It had already passed inspection...but was disqualified.

A lump of silver steel would be easier and cheaper to get hold of and your attach part could be smoother for much longer. I guess you are going to be placing the cutter inside a tube which you want to press or insert into the opponent before extending the cutter?

You can put a simple profile on the end and get a good hardened face with a softer hardening on the back done very easily and cheaply at most decent workshops.

http://www.chronos.ltd.uk/acatalog/index.html?http%3A//www.chronos.ltd.uk/acatalog/Chronos_Catalogue_Silver_Steel__127.html&CatalogBo dyhttp://www.chronos.ltd.uk/acatalog/i....ltd.uk/acatal og/Chronos_Catalogue_Silver_Steel__127.html&CatalogBo dy

Chronos are excellent with the silver steel, and great service, and I use them alot for general workshop bits and bobs, but they do not seem to be particularly specific with their materials in general- they sell aluminium bar but to date have not been very specific with alloys and so on. I suppose thats not such a consideration with their predominantly model engineer market. Ho Hum :-)

As adam says, and as I was going to suggest earlier before I was called away, is that, silver steel being easy to machine, you could build more of a custom, more suitable weapon. Drills and End Mills are only effective under very controlled conditions, eg a mill, lathe, drill-press and so on. Robot wars is about as far away from these conditions as you could possibly get. Id go for a more instinctive, dare I say it crude, weapon, with simple bashing and bludgeoning in mind, as opposed to something designed for the controlled removal of material.

Silver steel really is a pleasure to work with, and hardening it is a sinch- all you need is a bucket of water and apropane torch. There are some excellent guides for doing this on the net- worth looking in to.

Ed

Thanks for that link Alan - Chronos have some great stuff Ive been looking for.

I like Adam Clarks hardening idea. But to order a custom made one sounds tricky, hard and expensive. So I need more information about that.

We whant to have the capacity to drill through almost all steel alloys :-).
I suspect that this is hard to do with the silversteel drill that we are talking about?

(I know that you cant drill or mill in a moveing target, and that most people think that drills are silly.)

Tricky. Are bi-metal holesaws liable to shatter?

@ Jim....Nope .... Hard teeth on a spring steel type body.

So Johan your going to grab your opponent?

A possible solution might be a masonary drill it has a brazed carbide tip on the end ...I know that the carbide can shatter ....but its only going to be small particles.

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/FX20400.htmlhttp://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/FX20400.html

We whant to have the capacity to drill through almost all steel alloys :-).

Dont we all :-) The problem with Silver steel is that the colouration, showing the level of carbide content, which you use as an indicator as to when you quench in water, occurs somewhere like 300 degrees. When drilling hard materials, it is easy for the drill and workpiece to reach this temperature. If the silver steel piece reaches this temperature, it will soften, which obviosuly isnt much use. This is why High Speed Steel was invented- to stay hard and keep its edge at high tempertures. Unfortunatelly, as previosuly mentioned, HSS steels are more brittle. I reckon the way to go would be TiN- titanium nitride coated- its both g=hard and tough, and should cope with most steel alloys.

Getting something made in a machine is cheap and easy. Explain what you want and they go do it. Probably get it done for about £30 if that. Likewise the hardening bit done through a company that specialises in, and the phone books are full of them, is also easy and probably about £20. The one I used can harden front back and sides to different tempers and even apply spot tempers to corners and edges where required. A black art to be sure.

Drilling as a weapon tho, maybe on feathers but on anything larger you probably want to increase that drill bit size to about 300mm. Now that would be fun.