Welding World Magazin April 2018

16
NEWS
POWER TOOL INVENTOR
Part 1 of 2
TALKS MAG DRILLS
Nathan Ford, Area Sales Manager for Fein
Power Tools in the UK, discusses what you
should look for when purchasing a mag
drill and the applications some can now
achieve. He will also briefly cover the new
cordless/compact mag drills new into the
UK market.
Magnetic core drills or “Magdrills”
for short are an essential tool for
anyone involved in the production and
installation of structural steel. They
can also be a handy addition to the
tool kit of anybody looking to drill
larger diameter holes. Core drilling is
an extremely efficient process which is
faster, quieter and more accurate than
twist drilling. Core drilling requires no
predrilling or switching over of the
tooling, and so drilling times can be
reduced by over 50%, with minimal
physical effort by the user.
CHOOSING YOUR DRILL
The first decisions to be made when
buying a Magdrill is the capacity of the
machine and what size hole are you
likely to be drilling? Next, consider what
thickness material you will be drilling?
An obvious question yet if you are
buying a drill with a 30mm max capacity
and on your next job you need to drill a
35mm hole it may have been worthwhile
buying the model up from the original
machine. Fein currently offers a large
range of Magdrills from 30-80mm
capacity, the new cordless Magdrill
starting at 35mm.
When it comes to depth of cut, most
machines will be able to handle a
cutter with a depth of 25mm. For most
applications this will suffice but if you
have an application which requires either
the cutting of thicker material, or the
drilling of box sections, or step drilling, it
is worth looking for a drill with as large
a stroke range as possible. Ranges can
vary from 65mm to 315mm so it worth
taking this into consideration.
APPLICATIONS
What is the machine going to be
used for? You just want to drill a hole
into a piece of steel, right? You have
chosen your drill based on the size of
hole and material thickness, but there
may be some other criterias to look
at. Most Magdrills are fixed speed and
manufactured so in order to keep costs
down; designed to drill a hole into
steel. Fein invests more into most of its
mag drills allowing the motor to deliver
variable speed (except the KBB range).
This variable speed, and in addition
reverse functions are important if you
have varying diameter holes to drill or
are looking for a Magdrill which can tap,
ream or countersink.
There are many standard providers of
mag drill in the market and Fein itself
offers Economical models. Its premium
models offer variable speeds and the
programmes discussed (universal), or
automated drill feeds (automatic). Fein
was proud to launch two new classes
of mag drill in late 2017, ‘Cordless’ and
‘Compact’. The brand new AKBU 35
(cordless) helps end-users who lack mains
power on-site or who need to work at
heights. If working in confined spaces a
specialist right angled Magdrill would be
needed, with a minimum head clearance
of 169mm. The new ‘compact’ KBC 35
would assist, small enough to help get
into tight spots.
Find out more about Fein’s mag drill
range including these new machines:
https://fein.com/en_uk/drilling/metalcore-drilling/
WELDING WORLD MAGAZINE | ISSUE 02 | APRIL 2018