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TCT or diamond core drill?

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Fred

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Mar 25, 2008, 2:17:49 PM3/25/08
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Hello again,

I would like to add a fan to the downstairs cloakroom. I need to drill
a hole in the wall. Is it easier to cut an oblong out and use
rectangular ducting or should I use a core drill and take a 110cm
circle for round ducting?

I see that the catalogues list TCT core drills and diamond core
drills. Is one better than the other? Do I need a special drill to
spin them?

Do you think that 10cm fans are any good? Should I upgrade to 15cm?

Thanks.

Ed Sirett

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Mar 25, 2008, 3:29:55 PM3/25/08
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Try googling the archives. We had this thread a few weeks ago.

Diamond much better than TCT, both need drill with safety clutch, both
much more expensive than by hand.

10cm is good for a bathroom certainly for a small cloakroom. Possibly not
good enough for a kitchen.


--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html
Choosing a Boiler FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/BoilerChoice.html

John Rumm

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Mar 25, 2008, 10:06:12 PM3/25/08
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Fred wrote:

> I would like to add a fan to the downstairs cloakroom. I need to drill
> a hole in the wall. Is it easier to cut an oblong out and use
> rectangular ducting or should I use a core drill and take a 110cm
> circle for round ducting?

The mount on the wall extractors usually expect to be sited directly
over a round hole. If you are ducting then you have more options.

> I see that the catalogues list TCT core drills and diamond core
> drills. Is one better than the other? Do I need a special drill to
> spin them?

Diamond is better, but as a one off, TCT will probably cope unless you
have very hard bricks etc.

You need a powerful drill to spin them. I have managed to drill a 107mm
core with my 780W SDS on a number of occasions, but you have to take it
nice and gently and try to keep dead straight to avoid snagging the bit.
Usually the clutch on a SDS is set to let go a little too soon for cores
above 70mm or so. Dedicated core drills usually have a bit more power,
and a more aggressive setting on the clutch. (powerful drills without a
clutch are a recipe for various injuries when the core snags)

> Do you think that 10cm fans are any good? Should I upgrade to 15cm?

They can be quite effective in the smaller rooms.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

Fred

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Mar 30, 2008, 6:20:22 PM3/30/08
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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:06:12 +0000, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

>Diamond is better, but as a one off, TCT will probably cope unless you
>have very hard bricks etc.
>
>You need a powerful drill to spin them. I have managed to drill a 107mm
>core with my 780W SDS on a number of occasions, but you have to take it
>nice and gently and try to keep dead straight to avoid snagging the bit.
>Usually the clutch on a SDS is set to let go a little too soon for cores
>above 70mm or so. Dedicated core drills usually have a bit more power,
>and a more aggressive setting on the clutch. (powerful drills without a
>clutch are a recipe for various injuries when the core snags)

Sorry if this is a daft question: how do I know if my drill has a
clutch? Does the fact that I don't know mean that it doesn't? Do all
sds drills have clutches? What about "traditional" drills?

Fred

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Mar 30, 2008, 6:21:22 PM3/30/08
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On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:29:55 +0000 (UTC), Ed Sirett
<e...@makewrite.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Try googling the archives. We had this thread a few weeks ago.

Thanks. I found the recent TCT core thread and have read that. I think
it was the TCT set being discussed that I had seen and thought about
using.

How do I search the archives? I didn't even know there were any.

John Rumm

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Mar 30, 2008, 11:21:34 PM3/30/08
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groups.google.com archives pretty much all the text based usenet feeds.
You can either use the advanced search facility to search a particular
group, or include "group:uk.d-i-y" in your search string.

John Rumm

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Mar 30, 2008, 11:26:23 PM3/30/08
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Fred wrote:

>> You need a powerful drill to spin them. I have managed to drill a 107mm
>> core with my 780W SDS on a number of occasions, but you have to take it
>> nice and gently and try to keep dead straight to avoid snagging the bit.
>> Usually the clutch on a SDS is set to let go a little too soon for cores
>> above 70mm or so. Dedicated core drills usually have a bit more power,
>> and a more aggressive setting on the clutch. (powerful drills without a
>> clutch are a recipe for various injuries when the core snags)
>
> Sorry if this is a daft question: how do I know if my drill has a
> clutch? Does the fact that I don't know mean that it doesn't? Do all
> sds drills have clutches? What about "traditional" drills?

Actually a good question - and there is no simple answer to it.

The "quality" SDS machines will have a clutch, as will anything that
mentions in its advertising blurb that it has one. However don't assume
all SDS machines do. Some of the budget ones are renowned for not having
one (google back a few years for accidents with NuTool ones that had a
habit of slipping out of chisel only mode into chisel + rotation mode!).

Anything advertised as a "core drill" will also certainly have one.

Most traditional drills and hammer drills won't have one.

Fred

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Mar 31, 2008, 4:03:12 PM3/31/08
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On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:21:34 +0100, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

>groups.google.com archives pretty much all the text based usenet feeds.

I was always taught that google was not the way to read news ;)

Does it obey X-no-archive headers? If so, it may miss a lot of the
posts but if it ignores it, that's naughty!

John Rumm

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Mar 31, 2008, 10:04:04 PM3/31/08
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Fred wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:21:34 +0100, John Rumm
> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
>> groups.google.com archives pretty much all the text based usenet feeds.
>
> I was always taught that google was not the way to read news ;)

Its not. But it is the way to search archives of it! ;-)

> Does it obey X-no-archive headers? If so, it may miss a lot of the
> posts but if it ignores it, that's naughty!

It does respect the no archive header - so indeed there are gaps
(although it keeps them for a few days). Often enough of the non
archived posts are quoted in other replies to let you figure out the
gist of it.

Fred

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Apr 2, 2008, 10:35:00 AM4/2/08
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On Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:04:04 +0100, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

>It does respect the no archive header - so indeed there are gaps
>(although it keeps them for a few days). Often enough of the non
>archived posts are quoted in other replies to let you figure out the
>gist of it.

Thanks. That's useful to know. It must cost Google in terms of
storage. What's in it for them? Do they carry advertisements?

John Rumm

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Apr 2, 2008, 9:00:10 PM4/2/08
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I think in the grand scheme of things the whole of usenet (if you ignore
the binary groups they don't archive) is almost insignificant in the
terms of the storage that google use for other stuff. I have not seen
recent stats for a full newsfeed - but it might grow at a few gig a day.
It sounds like loads to us, but probably represents 10 seconds worth of
consumption used by youtube or similar. The older historical stuff (say
up to the late 90's) is only a few gig in total.

As to advertising, yup you get a few sponsored links listed on the
right. So that is potential income from their advertisers with every search.

Fred

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Apr 9, 2008, 7:47:11 AM4/9/08
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On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:26:23 +0100, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

>The "quality" SDS machines will have a clutch, as will anything that
>mentions in its advertising blurb that it has one. However don't assume
>all SDS machines do. Some of the budget ones are renowned for not having
>one (google back a few years for accidents with NuTool ones that had a
>habit of slipping out of chisel only mode into chisel + rotation mode!).

I notice that the Screwfix catalogue has a mixture of 2kg SDS drills
some with clutches and some without; the same is true of the 6kg
drills. I will have to double check whether mine has a clutch or not.

Thanks again.

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