the right direction

[darkoshi]

I am drilling some 5/16" holes in some pieces of wood. The drilling was taking forever and wasn't making much progress depth-wise. It reminded me of how hard it was using the large spade bits on the tree stumps outside earlier this year. Drilling some slightly smaller holes a few weeks ago in the same wood pieces had been so much easier and quicker! I had thought it was only spade bits and brad bits that were difficult like that, so I especially bought some larger sized twist bits, which I'm using today.

So I do a web search to see why it's so hard to drill large holes in wood, and find this page: A beginner's guide to drills and bits. It mentions:
... many hand drivers are reversible, so if it's spinning but not cutting, make sure you're going the right direction.

D'oh!!! The button for reversing direction is so easy to accidentally press on this drill. It works much better in the right direction. Now I wonder if I had it going in the wrong direction last year too, when I was using the spade bits.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Because of the mechanism of action (namely, the twist on a twist drill helping to pull the drill in or actively pushing it back out) it will be way more directional. A spade bit won't work well in reverse but it won't be terrible.

[randomdreams]

That was me, in my nom de plume.

[darkoshi]

Maybe the tree stump wood was just very hard. I'd have to try the spade bits again to see. Maybe someday.

[randomdreams]

Stump wood is extremely hard.