How to drill into concrete or granite ?

[Usjes]

Hi,

I need to hang a mirror but it is a very old house so the walls are made of solid granite stones (covered by ~1cm of plaster + wall paper). My drill is a 600W Black and Dekker and I generally use it for drilling wood but I did once try drilling into concrete to screw down a saddle board but I got nowhere. I pressed down on the drill but it didn't advance into the concrete at all, the drill bit just heated up more and I was worried that if I applied more presure the bit might simply break. So I expect the granite wall will be comparable to trying to drill concrete. From some brief googling it seems my first mistake when trying to drill concrete was that I did not enable the hammer mode on the drill I was just using drill mode. So, assuming I do use the hammer mode this time, is it likely to work ? Will 600W + hammer mode drill holes in a granite wall ? If so how long should it take to make a hole of ~1.5 inches deep using a drill bit with ~0.75cm diameter ? Any other advice for drilling into granite walls ?

Thanks,

Usjes.

 

[noseall]

The last time I tried to drill anything hard with a regular hammer drill was when we were building the Ark!

Beg, steal or borrow an SDS drill.

 

[Burnerman]

You'll probably get away with a new masonry bit (6mm) but the hammer function is absolutely vital when drilling masonry.
John

 

[noseall]

Double post!

 

[Stivino]

I agree with John, you must use the hammer function. Also, use a decent drill bit. With a good bit and using a good technique, you should be able to drill those holes in 30 seconds.

 

[cajar]

I agree with John, you must use the hammer function. Also, use a decent drill bit. With a good bit and using a good technique, you should be able to drill those holes in 30 seconds.

With a black and decker drill.... into GRANITE?? Try 30 years and about 200 drill bits.

 

[Dave54]

Granite will drill with a hammer drill and good sharp drill. It's slow though! Used to happen all the time down here in Cornwall before SDS were generally available.

 

[Norcon]

Try these...
http://tinyurl.com/nrbnrcy

 

[Richardthe3rd]

Granite will drill with a hammer drill and good sharp drill. It's slow though! Used to happen all the time down here in Cornwall before SDS were generally available.

Aye, they formally used a Star chisel & lump hammer, but it was very hard work & it took yonks!!! Thankfully, we left the Dark Ages behind us.

 

[Dave54]

Granite will drill with a hammer drill and good sharp drill. It's slow though! Used to happen all the time down here in Cornwall before SDS were generally available.

Aye, they formally used a Star chisel & lump hammer, but it was very hard work & it took yonks!!! Thankfully, we left the Dark Ages behind us.

If I had to plug granite, which wasn't too often luckily, I used to use the old hammer drill, and pull the drill out occasionally and give it a belt with a hand type plugging tool and hammer to help it along a bit. Those old plugging tools are basically a star chisel.

I think some of those old engineering bricks can be as bad as granite to drill!

SDS makes it so easy to drill pretty well anything masonry wise though.