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Threaded Drill Bits

asw20c

Well Known Member
This past weekend I was at the step where you begin bolting-on the horizontal stabilizer to the tail cone. Pretty cool seeing big parts come together like this. Anyway, the rear spar of the horizontal stab requires match drilling four 1/4" holes before bolting. Due to the space and geometry this looked like it would be the first use of my lightweight "tight fit" angle drill, but alas it was not to be because the 1/4" threaded bit that came with the kit was too short to make it through the slip bushing (drill guide) and the parts to be drilled, so once again I was on the internet looking for tools. I was looking at Brown Tools since they carry threaded drill bits, but was taken for a loop when I saw that every other size drill bit was less than $5, but the 1/4" ones were almost ten times as much, or closer to $50.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that we have more than one tool supplier available to us builders and I've bought several tools from Brown, but this seems like gouging. Just so no one gets caught in this trap, MSC Industrial Supply offers the 1/4" threaded drill bit for the same price as the other drill bits (about $5), not $50.
 
At first I thought it surely was a typo, but the same $50ish price tag was on more than one length of the 1/4" threaded drill bit. I didn't call to verify.
 
Not sure what changed, if anything, but item # 21250 is listed right now at $2.96, and the longer one item # 11250 is $3.07 at browntool.com. The expensive ones seem to be "solid carbide" which you definitely do not need for drilling aluminum.
 
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