Drilling

James Dunkerley Steels’ metal drilling service is one of our many fabrication techniques that help you to assemble structural steel and cabinetry faster on-site.

Industrial drilling is a way to create precise holes in sheet steel and box sections, primarily for use when assembling the structure, but also for other purposes such as attaching tightly secured signage and serial plates.

We are experts at drilling and countersinking, to allow bolts to sit flush with the surface of the metal, as well as tapping holes in steel into which bolts can screw directly, with or without the use of a locking nut.

What is drilling?

Drilling is very simply the process of making holes in any material. The most familiar example of this for many people is using a handheld power drill to make small circular holes, for example when hanging a picture.

Industrial drilling applies the same principle, but often on a larger scale. Metal drilling requires stronger and sharper drill bits, due to the hardness of steel, and should not be attempted without the correct equipment.

Our drilling service can add as many holes as needed into your metal, and our expertise means we are able to advise on variables like the number and/or position of holes.

What makes good metal drilling?

Good metal drilling can mean the difference between fast and accurate assembly, or having to re-drill or even replace entire sections of steel due to holes of the wrong size or in the wrong place.

There are many factors that determine the quality of industrial metal drilling, including:

• Well-informed number/positioning of holes
• Professional equipment for fast, reliable drilling
• High accuracy (neat holes with tight tolerances)
• Countersink/recessed holes for flush bolt heads
• Tapped holes for bolts to screw directly into

James Dunkerley Steels are proud to offer the highest standards of industrial drilling for steel sections and sheets, as part of our overall light fabrication service.

What is hole tapping?

Tapping holes in steel is the process of creating a hole with a threaded aperture, similar to the threaded interior hole on a nut.

By tapping a hole with the same thread size as your bolt, you allow the bolt to screw directly into the steel and the thread hold it in place.

This is one part of the process of ‘tap and die’. With an equivalent die set, you can create a thread on the end of a steel rod, allowing it to fasten into the threaded female component and essentially to act as a bolt.

Benefits of threading

Drilling and threading each have their own uses, and both are an important part of offsite fabrication and faster, easier on-site assembly of structural steel and steel cabinets.

Threaded metal drilling has several key benefits compared with drilling holes with no interior thread:

• Tapping holes in steel can remove the need for nuts in hard-to-reach locations
• Assembly using threaded holes can be faster and easier than using separate nuts
• Our tapped metal drilling service ensures tight tolerances for strong grip

Professional industrial drilling such as James Dunkerley Steels’ metal drilling service will take care to create a hole of the right size, with a clean thread, so that despite the high accuracy and tight tolerances, there should be no difficulty or delay in tightening the bolt.

Why James Dunkerley?

We work hard to provide an industrial drilling service of the very highest standard, whether you need simple holes or countersunk, threaded boltholes in steel sections and sheets.

If you would like to make an enquiry or ask us anything about our high-quality industrial drilling equipment and metal drilling processes, please get in touch.

You can find all our details on our Contact Us page. Call us on 0161 624 3168, email sales@dunkerley.co.uk or fill in our message form and a team member will get back to you as soon as we can.