I’m trying to drill a stud out of a swing arm on a motorcycle. It’s really **** hard and i’ve killed about 1 million HSS/Ti drill bits.

I think I need a carbide bit? Can someone point me in the direction of where I can find a 2mm and 3.5mm Carbide bit?

Ebay’s a good source of such things. But unless you’re using a drill press I’m not too sure it will make much difference.

****. What about annealing the steel or will I **** up the aluminium around it?

Sorry no idea.
I’ve heard of people dissolving broken steel taps from aluminium, but have never tried it.
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=270.0

Probably simpler solutions out there that hopefully other people can suggest.

Start small, drill slow, lots o coolant. Use cobalt or coated hss drills. Carbide will shatter in a hand drill as it wont flex like hss.
Or dremel.

if all else fails ,swingarm is worth something and off the bike, sparking might be the only solution

what cheezo said, got some cobalt recently for drilling SS, go slow theyre great

i have a sparker, if you are totally in the poo. can fetch out broken taps, that kind of thing.

ps, can you put a picture up of it?

I picked up a stud extraction kit from ebay for about 8 quid. seems to do the job

I work in carbide tooling and we sell carbide drills for hardened steel applications, but only for (rigid) machine tool applications.

HSS, HSCo or coated drills won’t last long for drill hardened bolts but they might be ok if you slow and by adding some kind of coolant/lube. You can get carbide tippped drills for steel (not masonary) that have a steel shank so flex better than solid carbide or you could try Cromwell who sell carbide drills espeicially for drilling out bolts.

Cromwell