Welcome back to Albany County Fasteners, Fasteners 101.
I'm Bob and today I'm going to show you how to properly drill a pilot hole, along with a countersink,
using a spade bit. So let's get started. I have here two Spade bits.
I'm going to drill a pilot hole and a countersink with these two Spade bits.
These are wood Spade bits and I'm going to drill for this 3/8" lag screw I have here.
I have my ratchet. So, what's key here about the pilot hole-I'm sorry,
about the countersink hole is that you need to have enough diameter to be able to use a ratchet to drive the lag screw.
So it's important that you get the right size.
So for a 3/8 inch lag screw, I'm using a 5/16 pilot hole and a 9/16 socket.
I'm using an inch and a quarter spade bit to basically give me enough room.
So if this moves around, I'm not tight.
It makes it very hard to get the socket out. It becomes a real issue.
Now I'm going to use a ratchet to put this in.
There's many other things you can use, such as a pneumatic.
They have some cordless drills that you can use today to install the lag screw.
This is for demonstration purposes, so I'm just going to do this.
The first thing that you need to do, and what not to do, is you never drill your pilot hole first.
If you drill your pilot hole first, which I'm going to demonstrate to you what happens,
if you drill your pilot hole first, so using your 5/16 for the 3/8 bolt,
when you go to drill your countersink it's gonna swash around inside and undo your pilot hole.
So it won't guide properly. With a spade bit, this little diamond shaped blade point is what guides the drill bit and holds it in place.
If you were to drill this hole with the Spade bit for 5/16, it's just gonna be too big.
Then this is gonna jump around, and it's going to jam the drill and you possibly could hurt yourself.
So I'm gonna demonstrate this now. So I installed my spade bit into the drill, and I'm basically ready to do my countersunk hole.
You always have to do your countersunk hole first for the head, and then again for how far you're gonna go down.
So basically I'm gonna countersink approximately three quarters of an inch to an inch into this wood.
Now I have gone down about three-quarters of an inch, which will be a nice countersink.
I'm gonna switch out my bit and put my pilot hole in, tighten that up, and put this bit in.
I'll continue drilling until I get through the other side. Always back up to bring the wood shavings out.
Well that didn't work right. Huh. I guess I didn't tighten it enough.
So I'll just tighten it up.
I'm gonna take my ratchet and drive it in. There you go. That's done.
Now I'm gonna demonstrate for you what happens if I drill my pilot hole first.
Now this is not a big pilot hole but if you were using a larger size, such as 1/2 inch, it's gonna be more severe.
I'm gonna drill the pilot hole first. You can see this nicely drills through.
No problem. Switch out my bit to do my countersink.
So as you can see here, this will now wobble around.
With that wobbling around you're not gonna get a totally centered countersunk. It's gonna want to take off.
I have to be cautious.
If I go too fast it's gonna jump around on me and it may wedge the bit in the hole and start to twist at my arm.
You can see already how this is chewing away at the wood. That's not what we're looking for.
You see how that's jumping around?
You can do it, you can get the countersunk done, but it's not precise. It's not clean.
It doesn't give you a nice clean finish. So at the end of the day,
you really want to drill your countersunk first and then your pilot hole.
Another thing to do, if you wanted to stop the splintering, is to put some blue tape over the area you're gonna drill.
This is very good for marking as well. You can write on blue tape.
Let me just find the beginning of this tape...there it is.
This will stop splintering from happening when you're using a spade bit.
So I'm going to do another countersunk.
That gives you a nice clean surface. You can see how nice and smooth that cut is.
I've used these bits before. I'm doing this for demonstration.
These bits are not brand new bits. Brand new bits you would have a nice sharper point.
I think you can see how nice I could drill through here.
Then you off the tape and there you go.
That's how you properly drill a countersunk with your pilot hole. Thanks for watching.
Congratulations to Randall E of Kodiak, Alaska.
He is our cool creations winner for this week.
Randall has created all-terrain undercarriage guards for use on ATVs and other recreational vehicles.
Randall is using our flat socket cap screws in stainless steel and our stainless finishing cup washers
for a sleek finished look on his Griz-Tech armored plated guards.
Griz-tech offers great protection from rocks, mud, sticks, and debris that can foul the fan or
cause damage to the radiator and undercarriage of the ATV.
Thanks again for submitting your cool creations Randall, we appreciate you!
Thanks for watching. See you next week.