Welding vs Mag Drill

[FMC1959]

With a decent mag drill, you can make holes, but also tap and ream. But speaking strictly from core/drilling side to join metal beams or plates with appropriate size & strength bolts, or joining said beams or plates by welding (assuming your welder is powerful enough for the needed weld), is one better than the other?

I have always heard that a proper weld will never fail at the weld but another part of the 2 surfaces welded would fail first.

A Mag Drill's primary function is to drill holes, which can be for other reasons (passing something through the hole...e.g.), but I suspect usually to connect to pieces of metal.

For anyone that owns a mag drill or has rented/borrowed one, what are the main reason you use it?

 

[zkling]

Drilling med to large ish holes in steel plate. Ex... Making stands, popping holes in frames. When you need to drill and or tap a close tolerance hole (drill wise) in a piece of plate they are the ticket as you are locked into 90 degrees and don't have to lean on a hand drill. Plus annular cutters produce a very noce hole.

Also, it is MUCH easier to take apart a bolted joint than a properly welded joint....barring a gas axe hack.

 

[dr_clyde]

I have 2 mag drills and I use them all the time for drilling larger holes in things that I can’t fit on my mill or drill press. Tons of applications outside of structural ironworking.

Not everything is appropriate to weld. Maybe it needs to be removed later, or has to be assembled on site.

Welds are stronger than the base metal if done correctly, yes, but there are lots of benefits to a bolted connection.

 

[lis2323]

Not really fair to try and compare. They each excel for different applications.

Lots of good manufactures of mag drills but I like my Hougens for anything that doesn’t fit on my drill press.




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[readhead]

From an erecting standpoint bolting is much faster and easier to control than welding. Of course welding is required in some exposed connections. I think it is actually faster to drill connecting holes than doing the weld prep.

 

[Bretny]

You may think that welding is permanent but it can almost always be removed one way or another. I find welding to be quicker and have a better outcome. You can tack things togethet for mock up then fully weld with no movement.

Multipal plates that need the same holes in the same locations i have actualy tack welded together then drilled. Each has there own use but i find my self useing my welder every few weeks. My drill and drill press every few months.

 

[FMC1959]

Thanks for the replies, valid reasons on both sides. My main reason for asking was to see if there was a really significant reason for the use of Mag Drills that I was not aware of. More or less, what I was expecting.

 

[lis2323]

On some projects, sections that will never need to be taken apart can be just welded but sometimes bolted assemblies can have better visual appeal. JMO of course.






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[zkling]

Thanks for the replies, valid reasons on both sides. My main reason for asking was to see if there was a really significant reason for the use of Mag Drills that I was not aware of. More or less, what I was expecting.

Go drill 4 x 3/4" holes in a piece 1/2" of plate, on a ladder, horizontal, with a hand drill. You'll buy mag drill the next day.

It is nothing more than a drill press with an unlimited throat depth.

 

[neophyte]

I have always heard that a proper weld will never fail at the weld but another part of the 2 surfaces welded would fail first.

A Mag Drill's primary function is to drill holes, which can be for other reasons (passing something through the hole...e.g.), but I suspect usually to connect to pieces of metal.

For anyone that owns a mag drill or has rented/borrowed one, what are the main reason you use it?

Most welds aren’t made to the standards used in Nuclear facilities.

As much as I’d like to velieve the “welds are stronger” line, I live in Philadelphia, and there were three major stories in the space of a year involving failed welds.

One story involved a bridge that had to be shut down due to a heavy duty I-Beam that cracked apart. The I-Beam was supposedly about an inch thick.
The problem was traced back to a couple plug welds used to fix holes that had been drilled in the wrong place.

The net two stories involved two separate instances involving trains.
One story involved relatively new trains that needed to be taken out of service because the wheel trusses which were welded together cracked at the welds on some of the trains.
The other story involved older trains that had had airconditioning units welded onto the support structures.

In all the stories the cracks happened either at the welds or right next to them.

Whether it was the weld that failed or the material right next to it, it hardly matters in a functional way, since the weld point was the failure point.

 

[Stick-man]

I use my mag drill motor to drill large holes in heavy steel. A few examples, holes for plug/rosette welds, lifting lugs, bolt on attachments......