Struggling drill into hardwoods

[Alex Shiells]

Has anyone had any problems drilling into hardwoods? I normally build with softer woods and sheet goods but over the weekend I put together a hardwood face frame and found that I got some wood burn and struggled to set some pocket holes into the wood. 

 

Any tips or tricks that you can share?

[Ken Darga]

I should have written---

wood boring ''spiral'' bits

 

Ken Darga said:

I purchased a set of wood boring bits---( not cheap).

...................

 

[Ken Darga]

When using standard drill bits in wood, I generally drill a small pilot hole, before proceeding with a larger size bit.

Generally an 1/8" size pilot hole does it for the 1/4-1/2".

The point of the larger bit will follow the small pilot hole, without wondering off course.

 

I ''generally'' drill pilot holes before using mortising bits.

 

On a recent project, I was in a hurry to finish up--- I didn't predrill pilot holes, before drilling with the 3/4" mortise bit.

The mortising bit went off course a tad---some of the holes were off 2-4 degrees, resulting in the 3/4''x12"dowels ''not straight/level''.

 

As a result, I had to disassemble and remake the 2x4 main frames, and redrill another 60 plus holes.

Oh well, I learned my lesson.

 

There's a 'ol saying, ''haste makes waste''.

 

Another I've heard, or read, ''do it right the first time, not over''.

This doesn't work all the time, since most of us ''learn by doing''.

[Ken Darga]

E-Z Lap diamond sharpening tools, markets a rotary tool and diamond steel round files,

for sharpening chain saws blades, that's very handy.

 

The lower rpm tool, is ideal when using diamond rotary files.

 

Dremel, or the like, rotary tools rotate too fast, and rapidly wear out the diamond files.

 

 

[Al Barale]

Alex as the others have said, your drill bit needs to be sharp, you also need to ensure that you clear the drill bit flutes of wood chips and dust more frequently as you are drilling,  you will generally find that with hardwoods the wood chips are finer and more dense and tend to get stuck in the drill flutes, compared to softwood which have larger wood chips and is more porous which tend to flow through the drill flutes better.