Polesaw Blade Drilling!!!

[rahtreelimbs]

Never fails, I took my polesaw out on a job today and someone new was using it. He decided to toss it out of the tree. The blade broke off at the hole in front of the bolt hole. The blade was still good so I decided to try to salvage it. After cutting off the bad section in a chop saw (which was only an inch or so) I found drillng the blade was next to impossible. I tried a small round Dremel burr bit chucked up in a cordless drill. The burr bit worked. I then opened the holes up with standard Hi-Speed drill bits. The bits had to be sharpened in my Drill Doctor several times. I also used an 1/8" thick fender washer to help give a little more blade support on the mounting bolt.

 

[rahtreelimbs]

Broken piece.

 

[rahtreelimbs]

Dremel burr bit.

 

[rahtreelimbs]

All fixed!

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

The "spring steel" is always hard to drill, takes a dimple and oil for sure i think.

i think it about has to break where the weakness of the hole, lines up where the end of the support of the head is; the hole or end of support can have problems, lining them up compounds against ya. i try to save and grind smooth the small broken off piece, as a custom, oversize washer to give support from both sides out to that same point, helps some i think.

 

[SteveBullman]

think the moral to that story is not to let other people use your tools
i personally dont let no-one touch any of my stuff.
as a result.everyone who works at the same company think im a miserable tosser but on the plus side, im the only person with pucker kit.

 

[lostone]

Rich, I dont know if it will work on it or not. But you can try a trick used to soften up and area when trying to drill a rifle for threading and installing a scope mount, Take a soldiering iron and just using the tip right in the center of where you want to drill and let it heat the metal up then let it cool by itself then try drilling it. On a receiver it will only take the temper out of an area about the size of an 1/8" drill bit doing it this way, without removing the temper out of the rest of the area.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

If I recall correctly, last time I did this, I used a round file to enlarge the holes and it worked great.

Rich, how'd that little burr hold up?

 

[rahtreelimbs]

Originally posted by Mike Maas
Rich, how'd that little burr hold up?

The burr was new. It cut right through, although I had a partial hole started.