drill or cut with a torch - 1 inch hole in a 1/2 steel plate

[Guest " "]

need to cut a 1 inch hole in a steel plate. building a dolly to move my trailer around. plate is 12" X 12" and has holes in each corner for wheels. just need a 1" hole to mount the ball. so im wondering if its better to drill it out our will drilling it be so laborious that I should just cut the hole with a torch. The last time I used my torch kit, it seemed like it was easier to cut thru steel than actually weld anything useful. I have one of those multiple tank systems that you need sun glasses to use.

[dtel]

The fastest and easiest way is to cut it with a torch, taking your time it would take under 2 min including heating it up. Make a nice soapstone circle and go at it, if you don't have much practice you can go around the line with a center punch to give you better marks you can burn right up to.

Drilling a hole that size is a pain even in much thinner metal and not as much fun.

imo

[mustang guy]

You never said how thingk the plate steel was.

The most important thing is how clean and exact do you want this 1" hole to be? I would use my plasma cutter and make a jig and make an almost perfect cut, but with my cutting torch, I would free hand it like dtel says, and clean it up with a die grinder or files. I don't even have any 1" drill bits I don't think.

Hey, you don't have a high powered laser do you? []

[Don Richard]

We just had to cut a similar hole in steel at work, and had it done at a waterjet shop. We could have put in our CNC mill to make the hole (it had to be accurate) but it would have tied the machine up for hours and would have eaten up the tooling. I think it cost $25 for them to do it.

[michael hurd]

It depends on what tools you have access to, and what grade of plate it is, but I would probably use the torch myself.

[JJkizak]

Use a new 1" drill bit with blaster on a drill press. It will drill a hole in minutes without warping the crap out of it like torching would do. You could drill a 3/8" hole first which would make it easier to drill the 1" hole. If you don't have a drill press forget it. Take it to somebody who can do the job. Don't even try to drill it with the geered 3/4" hand held drills or you will wind up like the Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon.

JJK

[JL Sargent]

A proper cutting torch is the way to do it. With a strong neutral flame and liberal oxy after melting starts the hole can be had very quickly. Do it all the time at work.

If you decide you have to drill, be sure to drill a small pilot hole first as JJK pointed out. Approx. 3/8" probably would do nicely I suspect.