Drilling Holes In Marine Carpet?

[Wantingaboat]

Hi Raiders,

I am about to spend the day working on my tinny and one thing i need to do is to dill a hole in the back floor as to pass the tubing through for my bilge pump. I have read that when you try and drill marine carpet it gets stuck around the drill bit. I can obvioulsy turn the ply over and drill through the wood but eventually i will hit the carpet. Do i just keep drilling or is there a better method for ending up with clean round drill holes???? Thanks in advace.

Mike.

[tan the fisherman]

what size hole do you require? Maybe a small holesaw would work?

[Dreamtime]

Use a wad punch first, slightly larger diameter than the drill bit.

Then trim any remaining loose fibres with a sharp knife (Stanley) before you commence drilling.

Cheers

Mariner

[jewgaffer]

.........I can obvioulsy turn the ply over and drill through the wood but eventually i will hit the carpet. Do i just keep drilling or is there a better method for ending up with clean round drill holes???? ........

Mike.

Mike ....... An easy way to cut out a hole in the carpet is to use a round lid as a template and a fine non permanent marker such as a texta......mark the exact position where the hole has to go and start off cutting from the inside of the texta mark....... use a gem razor blade or the short blade section of a stanley knife and finish off with a pair of sharp heavy duty sissors, carefully following the inside edge of the texta line..... You can also cut a disc out of a small piece of black plastic off an kids toy etc and put the disc over the hole and use a dab of soft setting brickies silicone or similiar rather than glue.... the black plastic disc will stop the edges from fraying and make the hole look nice and neat and you can also use matching discs to cover other holes or square cut outs in your carpet such as hatches, lids etc

Cheers

jewgaffer

[Wantingaboat]

Thanks guys. Will give it a go. Yes will need a hole saw as the bilge is a 1100gph rule pump and the diameter of tubing needs to be 1 1/8 inch(think thats right) so the hole in the floor needs to be reasonably large. I bought a new hole saw kit the other day and it cut through aluminium (the hole in the side for the water to go out) like butter.

[ICS]

I find when drilling with holesaws into carpet or vinyl, it pays to drill a pilot hole and then start the drilling in reverse. This usually allows the holesaw to cut through the fabric or carpet without catching and tearing the material, as the holesaw in reverse is still sharp enough to cut the material. Once you are through the material you can put it in foward to cut through the timber or aluminium.

Edited April 10, 2009 by ICS

[troutboy]

Try melting the edge of the hole with a soldering iron. This will fuse any loose fibres together which will prevent the carpet from fraying, the drill the rest of the hole with your holesaw. cheers troutboy

[Lasty]

I just drill through the carpet normally and then cut the carpet strands from the drill bit with a stanley knife.

[tuffy]

A Speedbore bit will do the job perfectly - these are the flat ones you see in any hardware store and are not that dear.Buy one and you'll have another tool that you can lend out !!

Cheers, Tuffy.