I Agree totally,

Where I work now, the engineers are a bunch of kids right out of school, all of the drawings are in metric.

Where I worked for the last ten years previous, it was all old timers, nothin but good ole inches.

These kids have no answer when I ask them why they are calling oit 1/4-20 screws on an assebly drawing that is dimensioned in metric?????????

One Way or the other Brother!!!!!!!!

I had to drill some stainless cap screws out the other day. Found some good info elsewhere on the net that echos what the others have said. Basically, keep it cool, go slow, use a lot of pressure and use carbide if you can get it. I actually used some old concrete bits and they worked fine.

Carbide drills are expensive and will shatter if provoked, so be careful and wear safety glasses if you use them.

Mr I See Lndon I see France is correct.Standard countersink for imperial fstenners is 82 degrees.If you buy a countersink that has a cross hole rather than cutting flutes it will work much beter as it will tend to chater less.

Gary and rchevelle71.....our machines are sold throughout the world so for what ever reason they have to be all metric.....including all the hydraulic and pneumatic tubing being metric....I like yourselves prefer American......Fred

All of the Japanese pieces of equipment I have (don't worry, 90% of my stuff is good ole Amurrican) use inch-spec hoses and fittings. All of the fasteners are Metric, but the plumbing is SAE.

Carbide drills designed for concrete are not preferred for drilling stainless. They WILL do it but the edges are not designed to shear a continuous strip of metal out of the hole.

Standard metalcutting drill bits will cut stainless
BUT
you MUST not spin it too fast, you MUST keep water on it, AND you MUST feed it fairly hard into the material keeping a continuous spiral metal chip coming out of the hole. You gotta CUT stainless, it doesn't like to be "rubbed".

I need to drill (24) of these holes - any suggestions??