15-5: Hand Drills

HAND DRILLS

Ah, the hand drill: a versatile tool found in almost every household. If you've never used one of these, you've probably at least seen someone else use one in the past. But did you know that there are actually multiple kinds of drills, each with their own unique purpose? In this lesson, we'll learn about different kinds of drills, the basics of using drills, and how to pick the right one for your application.

Different Drill Types

As usual, let's briefly discuss different power sources for drills. Drills can be pneumatic or electric, and the electric drills can be either corded or cordless. Above is pictured a battery-powered cordless electric drill, below, from left to right, are a pneumatic drill with an additional handle attachment, another pneumatic drill without a handle, and a corded electric drill with a handle attachment. Battery powered drills are easy to identify, because the base is usually bulky to accommodate the battery and they don't have a cord or a fitting for the pneumatic cable. A corded electric drill will have a cable, and a pneumatic drill will have a fitting o attach your pneumatics to. The electric drill also has a thicker chassis to accommodate the additional components required to convert electrical power into rotational power. 

Not only are there different power sources for drills, there are also different subcategories of hand drills, which we'll discuss next.

Standard Drill

This is your go-to drill. It has a variety of functions that make it useful for almost any standard drilling, screwing, or bolting operations. Watch this video to learn more about how to use a drill and it's features. These skills will come in handy throughout the rest of the tool modules, as well as in your career and day-to-day-life.

Toward the end of the video, he used a corded drill with a very large drill bit inserted into it. That kind of drill is called a hammer drill, and is what we're going to talk about next.

Hammer Drills

Hammer drills are typically a little longer and come with a handle. They are used for heavy-duty drilling, like drilling through concrete or bricks. You may have to use one of these when we discuss anchors in this class, but these are not the drills we will commonly be using. Hammer drills pound the drill bit in and out while drilling, so you probably don't want to use them for general applications. Many also have a depth gauge (the rod on the side with measurement lines/tick marks along it) alongside the chuck. Watch this video to get an understanding of how exactly hammer drills and standard drills are different.

Impact Driver

Okay, this one's a bit of a false friend. The impact driver looks a lot like a drill, but it should really only be used for driving in fasteners (screws and bolts). Because of this, we won't go into much detail here, but it is important to know how to recognize it so you don't try to use it for the wrong job. To identify a impact driver, look for it's signature snub-nosed appearance. It doesn't have the chuck on the end that a normal drill or hammer drill has, making it shorter. Instead of a chuck, it has a quick-connect feature on the end that only works with certain kinds of drill bits.

Safety

We'll talk more about safety when you use a drill hands-on, but here's a list of safety considerations now so you can start getting familiar with them

• Wear safety glasses
• Keep hands away from the drill bit while drill is active
• Don't wear loose or baggy clothing
• Tie up long hair
• Secure the work piece well

Do you think you can tell the difference between each drill type now? Let's find out.