Hilti’s new hollow hammer drill bits help lead to cleaner holes in brick, block, and cement with less fuss and effort.
After drilling a hole in brick, block, or cement, workers will often have to clear it of loose dust before an anchor can be properly seated. This can be done by placing a vacuum hose over smaller holes or sticking a blower or compressed air straw inside deeper ones.
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With one of these hollow drill bits, you simply attach a vacuum hose to the port near the mounting point and go about your boring business. Dust will be extracted from within each hole as they are drilled. Hilti claims that these bits not only improve hole-cleaning efficiency but also lead to safer anchor installation.
We can understand how these bits could boost the efficiency of the whole drilling-cleaning-anchoring process, but can these bits improve anchor strength and safety? Possibly, but that depends on too many things for us to judge for certain.
These new hollow hammer drill bits will be available in a multitude of sizes with SDS Plus (TE-CD) and SDS Max (TE-YD) connection shanks. The hollow channel in each bit extends from the tip to the built-in vacuum port positioned just ahead of the mounting point.
There’s no word as to how these hollow bits compare to conventional rotary hammer bits in terms of strength, durability, and drilling performance, but we don’t expect for there to be significant differences.
It looks to me that the carbide tip is more robustly built than typical bits, perhaps to compensate, and the absence of helical flutes might mean a thicker shank diameter for extra support.
SDS Plus TE-CD Bit Info(via Hilti)
SDS Max TE-YD Bit Info(via Hilti)
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Here’s a short and cutesy video from Hilti that shows how these bits work:
Michael Quinlan
I was looking at the Milwaukee universal vacuum attachment, but if the price is right these might be a decent alternative.
Stuart
It’s definitely a different approach. But I’m not convinced that these bits will create a perfectly dust-free environment, but there are no flutes. It could be that residual dust is extracted during bit removal from the freshly-drilled hole.
Dan
We saw them at World of COncrete 2013, they actually work rather well.
Michael Quinlan
Anchors I install don’t typically require adhesive, so my primary use for these bits (or the vacuum) would be to minimize both dust inhalation and the mess made with the debris, when drilling holes to establish a cable path.
Matt P
I think the biggest appeal of these would be the time savings. If you can drill and clean at the same time, the cost of the bit and tool would be paid for in the higher efficiency.
Tyler
These are awesome I drill hundreds of 7/8″ all threads with a 9″ inbedment. Makes a 3 man job a 1 man job. Epoxy is very temperamental to moisture. Open Holes outside exposed to rain is a nightmare, Especially if the dust is still in them. They can take days to dry. This Epoxy is also tempermental to temperure if it is cold you have plenty of time to work with it before it sets up. If it is hot you can barely keep it from setting in the mixing tube. Speed is the key to this VC-40U setup. Drill, Epoxy, Drop. Done!!! These holes are by far cleaner than Spirial Bits, wire bruse/nylon brush and compressed air! Because the Dust never needs to reach the surface the side walls stay extremely clean! If you do this repititously you should own this setup