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Tag broken drill

How to remove a broken carbide drill

Reference: Removing Carbide Tooling

There are two types of metal disintegrator power supplies. AC machines are built for speed and power. DC power supplies use a lower melting point and work better with carbide materials. Some of our DC-powered models include the 2-SC (portable) and the table model 2-SAC.

Removing carbide tooling with your Electro Arc DC metal disintegrator can be very easy if you follow these simple rules. The process for disintegrating carbide is very different than HSS high-speed steel because of the composition of carbide tooling. Increasing the heat or feed rate will only make the problem worse. With higher heat, the carbide will pool at the bottom of the hole and consume the electrode.

Disintegrating Carbide:
1) Use your “Heat Selector Chart” to select the appropriate electrode size and heat selection.
2) Ensure the part is well grounded.
3) Good coolant flow is critical. 90 psi @120gpm.
4) Use your Current monitoring LEDs’ for the feed.
5) LED’s should never exceed the second Green LED. Any faster will stall the process and consume electrode.

DC Selector Chart
AC Selector Chart

Suggested Electrodes for downhole drill heads with carbide bits

Removing carbide bit(s) from drill heads can be made easy. There are many ways to remove the buttons but only one safe way. Using a torch and pounding on the drill hears can damage the structure and the temper of the material. Disintegrators do neither.

There are two types of metal disintegrator power supplies. AC machines are built for speed and power. DC power supplies use a lower melting point and work better with the carbide materials. You will want to use one of our DC-powered models for a job like this 2-SC (portable) and the table model 2-SAC.

Typically, a hex graphite electrode is used. The electrode is sized to disintegrate near enough to leave a thin shell behind. See the time studies below for a better idea of how long your disintegration job will take. After disintegration, the operator would be able to remove the shell with a hammer and punch. If done correctly, there would be no damage to the hole or thermal distortion to the bit.

When you remove carbide bits from drill heads, the following graphite electrodes are recommended:

To remove a carbide bit:

Save the bit:

Disintegrate the hole using the suggested electrode size. With a hammer and punch, crack the bit shell and remove the remnants to clear the hole. 

To save the bit, disintegrate a hole with an inside diameter large enough to leave a thin shell around the bit. Use a hammer and punch to crack the shell and remove the carbide bit.

Download our Graphite Electrode Selector Chart for removing Broken Drill Head Bits
10 Ways you can use Electro Arc Metal Disintegrators

When you think of a metal disintegrator you probably think of removing broken bolts.  Electro Arc metal disintegrators have a variety of uses.  Disintegrating hard metal is easy with our machines!  A minute arc causes the disintegration process at predetermined intervals.  These arcs burn microscopic pieces of your work metal.

Here are just 10 ways you can use your Electro Arc metal disintegrator to save time and money by accomplishing in minutes what would have taken you hours or days to do in the past.

Broken Taps

You can use your Electro Arc metal disintegrator to remove broken taps from any material. A machine with an Arc*er head will remove taps between #6 – 1 1/4″.  If you need to remove between #0 and 2″ or bigger, the IQ head is built to disintegrate the largest and smallest taps.  If you will be disintegrating carbide, look into our DC metal disintegrators!

Broken Studs

You can remove broken studs  with an Electro Arc metal disintegrator.  Use one of our DC models to remove larger diameter studs (2.5″ – 6″) As illustrated below:

Broken Drills

Don’t waste hours removing broken drills.  Save money and salvage your parts.

Broken Reamers

When reamers break they can be especially hard to remove.  Use your metal disintegrator to remove broken reamers with no damage to your part.

Cut Round and Shaped Holes

Your metal disintegrator can be used to cut round holes without annealing the surrounding metal regardless of the rockwell hardness!

Cut shaped holes in hardened metals using shaped electrodes.

Preserve the thread when you remove large broken taps by disintegrating out the core.  Our magnetic pick set helps you remove the sections in no time!

You can remove small diameter drills from expensive parts saving you from salvaging expensive machine parts.

When you have a frozen stud our metal disintegrators can still save you time and money by removing the broken stud, screw or bolt with two cuts.

You may have wiped out half of the thread on your broken bolt trying to remove it, broken easy-out in the hole, made a mess trying to weld out a broken stud, or totally galled the thread when you were trying to remove that broken stud.  If you really want an easy solution for removing broken studs and screws, we have your solution!  An alternative to the “two cuts” method illustrated above?  The square hole.  When you disintegrate a square hole in your broken studs you can use an socket wrench to remove them!

Save your broken end mills!  As any machine shop knows, broken end mills can shut down operations costing your company more money per hour than you can afford!  Our Metal disintegrators will save your broken end mill and save you money immediately!

An Electro Arc metal disintegrator is an investment some companies use to provide metal disintegration services for time sensitive jobs!  Most of our customers need the metal disintegrator to continue operations this is especially true for power stations, petro-chemical works, oil equipment, offshore installation ships and general process industries.  In these industries every minute is worth thousands of dollars.  If you have key piece of equipment, that needs repair due to a broken fastener you need it now!  Easy out will not cut it in these settings!

Applications go well beyond just broken stud and bolt removal.  you can cut slots 1mm wide, and 10mm deep in heavy test pieces for calibration or deep cuts through seized clevis pins.  Orientation is never a problem with our versatile disintegrating heads!

Are you looking for more applications for your metal disintegrator?  Check out our new post 10 More Ways you Can use Electro Arc Metal Disintegrators.

How to Remove Broken Drill Bit From Metal

Are you wondering what the best way to remove broken drill bits from metals is? Electro Arc has been providing high-quality broken tap, drill, stud, and bolt removal EDM / MDM machines since 1947. Our technology safely removes the broken drill in seconds without causing any damage to your part. Our spark erosion and metal disintegration technology can save you thousands of dollars by not causing damage to expensive parts. Please, take a moment to review how our spark eroders work.

Examples of disintegration with an Electro Arc metal disintegrator

Get the Job Done Right with Electro Arc

Electro Arc’s unique process disintegrates only the center out of a broken tap or drill leaving its threads intact.  You can use this process to cut square or round shapes to back out studs or bolts or to remove large studs with a series of cuts.  Emboss identification on rolls of steel, bore, and counterbore holes.  You can reclaim expensive parts and provide immediate repairs on all types of equipment.  Thus you will experience fewer production overruns and late deliveries.

Model 2-SQT for removing broken drills:

  • Unlimited disintegration potential in a compact, versatile package 
  • For HSS tooling removal
  • Remove taps, drills, and studs from 0-80 to 2” (24.5 mm) in a single pass
  • The 36-inch maxi feature provides ultra-rigid support for absolute positioning

See more videos
IQ Head Adjustment on a Metal Disintegrator

Below is a transcription of the above video. If you have any questions about our broken drill, tap, and spark erosion machines then contact us on our contact page.

In this video we are going to demonstrate how to restore your IQ head back to the 20,000 factory setting for this is necessary when you realize that your IQ head is not operating optimally but this can be demonstrated and duplicated by pulling down on the Chuck lock nut and focusing right here on the collar at the top of the spindle assembly.  If you just pull straight down you will notice that there is to much play or too little or none at all. We are going to rotate it counterclockwise, once you get it to come to a complete stop stop you’re going to rotate it clockwise 1/3 turn while we do our 1/3 turn we are going to tighten back down the screw on the collar and this should get us right back to the 20,000 factory setting. There is one more step that we are going to take, moving you up top on the spindle and show you how to adjust the spring. In this segment we are going to show you how to set the spring adjustment for optimal head vibration and we do this by first of all making sure that we have our power stroke set at 100%.  We want to turn on our head vibration. We want to take our Allen wrench turn clockwise, to decrease spring tension. During our rotating here we are paying close attention to how the sound is resonating.  We want a nice smooth sound coming from the machine. The second component is it should be difficult to stall the machine by pushing upon  the brass fitting, it sounds like we’re almost there. so now that we achieved the optimal head vibration, we take our button head screw, here we go ahead and wait make sure that the slot on the spring adjustment is in line and it appears as though it is.  We make sure we put that back in place and now we have achieved setting the head at the 20,000 factory setting and fine-tuning it for optimal head vibration and you can enjoy smooth operation of your metal disintegrator.  You can also refer to your manual we have pictures and instructions detailing how to adjust your IQ head.

Electro Arc was purchased by Stillion Industries in 2019.  You can still access old Metal Disintegration troubleshooting videos like this one, we also have a new YouTube channel and a website for machine owners with resources at metal-disintegrators.com

 

Electro Arc