The short answer is No. Stand beside it.

How to safety stand on your core drill rig.

This is a updated post from one of our older websites in Charlotte, NC.

(Disclaimer ) These following methods are definely non standard, and possibility dangerous to attempt or implement at any level of experience. When core drilling any slab, sidewalk or floor if possible always use built in safety measures as stated in the manual that accompanied the rig and drill motor when purchsed or rented. Use this advice only if you are an experienced core drill operator, and then only at your own risk.

What if I can not use a traditional way to anchor or vaccum base my core drill rig and base plaste to the concrete?

If you are a core drill operator for very long you are going to find out that every job, though simular in alot of cases, is different in many others. Sometimes in a days work you may be asked not to attach a concrete anchor into the floor or get vaccum on the floor to suck the core drill base to the floor for various raseons. We have found that more often than not our task that day will include areas we have to free style drill the core drill hole. It is always best to have a plan and a well layed out method for doing free style drilling and the picture above best demostrates the way to accomplish this. Never actually stand on your core drill rigs base when drilling. Always prepare to have a finger on the power switch to immediately cut the power off. It does not take but a second for the rig to suddenly spin faster than you can react. In a perfect world the vacuum base attached to the core drill rig would suck the core drill down tight every where you needed to core drill a concrete hole. But it don't and won't in every situation. If the concrete is smooth and revetively flat the vacuum base will suck down to the concrete surface and hold the drill perfectly still and rigid while you drill the hole. But often this is not the case. Some simple and usually easy items to find to fix this problem may be mud. Mud can be used to pack around the bottom of the core drill base where the rubber gasket could be losing vacuum. This trick works good where line breaks are in the concrete.Otherwise you may be in an area trying to core drill where the vacuum base just won't work.If this is the case you can remove the vacuum base altogether and use a 4 to 5 inch concrete wedge anchor, or even a 1/4 inch x 4 inch masonary screw, to hold the core drill rig in place while you core drill. Tools for this task would be a hammer drill, hammer, wedge anchor and socket set or crescent wrench to tighten the anchor down. If you are planning to remove the wedge anchor after you have drilled a grinder may be needed too. This method works great where you can not get vacuum to the concrete.But wait. What if you can't get vacuum and can for some reason use a wedge anchor to fasten the core drill down? Well...Stand on it. Or better yet, NEXT to it. This is probably breaking the #1 rule that is posted on each core drill when sold new and definably in the core drilling manual. But at time it is the only thing that will really work. Of course when even breaking the rules there are some basic's you should pay attention to. Especially if you are core drilling on a balcony or dangerous place.

Some simple rules to follow.

• A ) Always stand to the left of the drill. The Core drill motor spins the core drill bit clockwise. If the core drill bit gets hung up for some reason the core drill rig will always spin to your right side.
• B ) Position the power cord tight to the left under your boot so that if the core drill does spin the power will disconnect itself and stop the drill from turning. For this reason don't use locking electrical plugs ONLY. If you are able use electrical adapters that will let the power cord totally disconnect from the core drill power box or motor if the drill starts to spin away from your very stout left foot on the power cord.
• C ) Do Not apply too much pressure while free styling it and let the base of the rig rise up in front. Easy does it.
• D ) Do not try this with core drill motors that are rated over 15 amps. Well I had to say it anyhow. 15 amp motors are usually for drilling 3 inch and smaller holes in concrete. 20 amp motors for 3 inch and above. So it is harder to stop a 20 amp machine that can bore a 12 inch hole becasue of the additional horsepower needed to turn the weight of the bit.
• E ) Do not ever actually stand on your core drill rig, stand beside it.

Core drill operators in Greensboro North Carolina

Part of the Carolina Precision Core Drilling family of core drilling companies located in the heart of the Tarheel state. Three service trucks to cover towns between the Virginia state line to the South Carolina border. We have cored many types of penetrations in all styles of buildings, slabs and walls.

Call 704-245-0119

From core barrel sizes of on-half inch to 14-inches in diameter, and as deep as 36 inches most cases. Recently we have drilled at the new Guildford county Childrens musuem, the federal court house and the Comfort Suites on Spingfield st.

Core drilling services for southern Virginia

Reasonable prices concrete core drilling for South Hill, Lake Gaston and of course Petersburg, Virginia.

Professional Core drillers with 35 years experience core drilling reinforced concrete walls and floors.

Specializing in boring holes in reinforced block walls, solid concrete walls, foundations, concrete sidewalks and, concrete floors from diameters of 1 to 14 inches with depths of up to 36 inches. Many projects are for commercial services where a penetration or opening is needed to pass through a water pipe, electrical conduit or wires, HVAC air ducts as examples.

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Professional core drilling company. Charlotte. NC

You haven't found another site that just wants to list an array of useless information about core drilling in Charlotte NC to get website visitors. You want a core drilling company that can core drill holes in reinforced concrete walls and floors for any type of hole you need core drilled.

We are the core drilling company that your looking for!

We specialize exclusively in core drilling reinforced concrete walls and floors in Charlotte, NC. We offer core drilling sizes from 1-inch to 14-inches in hole diameter and depths from 6-inches to 36-inches in depth or thickness. We service the areas of central North Carolina. Including the grand Queen City of Charlotte.

What type of concrete anchor to use?

Every once in a while on a construction site here in North Carolina we come across some other persons that also operator core drilling machinery and like all people, we are nosey so we stick around to catch a glimpse of how other core drillers use various core drilling anchoring methods and how they differ from our own when performing the same type of work. We have witnessed just about every type of machine that will run a wet or dry core drill bit to our amazement. this includes the standard stand up rig, wall-mounted rigs, stair mounted rigs, directional rigs that core at almost any angle, and the handy but efficient 4 1/2" grinder that a fellow was using one day that I swore could almost knock out 3-inch core drill holes in a 3rd story concrete floor as fast as we could with a stand-up rig.

Without trying to argue with anyone we would ask why they used drop-in anchors instead of wedge anchors when mounting the base of the coring unit to the wall or floor. The most common reply was because that was what was supplied by the contracting company that employed them. Having met over 300 people in our line of work we don't mind sharing what we believe to be the best and safest way to make a small or large hole in the concrete.

Wedge anchor vs Drop-in anchor

In our opinion the pros of using wedge anchors over drop-in anchors is obvious. A 7-inch by 1/2 inch wedge anchor as pictured is driven into the concrete at least 4-inches. A drop-in anchor, which is not pictured because the boss man does not allow them in the shop or work truck, by comparison, is driven into the concrete by less than 1 1/2" and sometimes less. With a wedge anchor even if the hole to be penetrated is more than head high on a wall and you have to use a ladder, you can still manage to hang the base onto the anchor and then secure the mounting screw and tighten down the rig in place onto the wall. With a drop-in, well your guess is as good as ours. Our advice is to use caution and common sense with any concrete anchoring system that is holding your 140 pounds plus rig to a spot high on any concrete wall.

Tapcons. masonry screws, sleeve anchors

These three types are the other most common concrete anchors that our company uses.

Tapcons or masonry screws utilized correctly can be a great way to hold down your rig while drilling floors, tops of retaining walls, and other vertical holes. Which is a ten-dollar way of saying floors or downward drilling. Great for holding things down, but not up, so Never used masonry screw to attach a rig to a wall.

Sleeve anchors are made to hold things in not-so-solid walls such as cement block and brick. Though a single wedge anchor might do the trick when coring a solid concrete wall, it is our advice that when coring a brick or block wall to use more than one sleeve anchor to hold the weight of the rig, motor and bit along with the additional weight of the water hose and electrical setup for the control panel. If possible use a larger 4 to 6 inch by 1/2 inch size anchor in the middle slot and a smaller 3-inch by 3/8 inch or, maybe 1/2 inch by 4-inch if you are able to do so where the leveling hole bolts are typically found.

Vacuum pumps and Roof jacks

Most modern core drilling rigs come with a funny-looking screw top on the tip of the mast that can be confusing. It usually has a metal point to it and you may wonder what on earth it is for. It is for using a 4 x 4 piece of lumber to act as a clamp between solid concrete floors on multi-story buildings. You place the core drill where the hole needs to go, measure just a bit short of how tall the concrete ceiling above is, cut your 4 x 4 lumber and stick it on top of the point part of the jack and begin screw clockwise to tighten the core drill rig down to the floor you are standing on.

Vacuum pumps use rubber seals around the base and a vacuum module that suck the rig down to the concrete and probably the most common method of anchoring a core drill rig to most concrete floors.

Carolina Precision Core Drilling

A North Carolina core drilling company with over 25 years of experience making holes in reinforced concrete, concrete floors, concrete walls, brick walls, and cement block walls.

Our area of core drilling service area

is the towns of Charlotte, Raleigh, Winston Salem, Greensboro, Asheboro, Fayetteville, Durham, Chapel Hill, Salisbury, Concord, Sanford, China Grove, Salisbury, Albemarle, Locust, Mint Hill, Matthews, Monroe, Laurinburg, Rockingham, Wilson, Wake Forest, Dunn, Siler City and, Statesville.

We can core holes from 1 inch to 14 inches in reinforced concrete, reinforced brick walls, and reinforced block walls with ease. Our drilling depths are from 14 inches to 36 inches in most cases. Some of our projects include the Concord Mills Mall, Opry Mills Mall, Hearst Tower, Bank of America, High Point ballpark, most of downtown Raleigh, Charlotte, and Greensboro. We have 2 work crews stationed in NC. We core drill holes for businesses and homeowners alike. In sidewalks, towers, walls, floors, brick patios, stone pavers, chimneys, basements, foundations. Most of our work takes place in central to southern North Carolina, but we can travel to Southern Virginia cities including Richmond, Petersburg, South Hills, Lawerenceville, and possibly Danville and Lynchburg.

Equiped to Be efficent

For the most part, we use Milwaukee core drill motors, and core bore rigs, though we had fabricated a few custom core drill rigs for our own use that are very custom-made designed for getting in tight places that an ordinary core drilling rig will not fit. Core drilling reinforced concrete in itself is often dangerous work and if you have the availability of having a professional core drilling company do the hard stuff for you then you are well on your way to completing your project. This happens to be our company mission statement in a single word: Completion. We are masters at wet core drilling concrete walls and concrete floors as well as dry core drill, though usually, we will only dry core drill through hollow cement block walls using a core drill bit of 5-inches or less diameter. The reason for this is simple, most concrete blocks have a 5-inch or less hollow cell as part of the precasting of the material, thus a 5 inch bit will work nicely to penetrate the outer walls of the cell and not the inner supporting structure of the block. Not written in stone, just a preference. In addition, we have developed unusual techniques to core drill holes dead center on solid concrete and hollow block walls in North Carolina. We provide fast and speedy service as most projects or gigs can be booked with days of the first contact, sometimes the same day or next day following depending on the work schedule and the type of core drilling job that it is.

We have in our arsenal of core drilling projects completed having performed specialized core drilling projects for the following structures:

1. Hospitals, Parking garages, Hotels, Restaurants, Stadiums, Parking lots, Museums, Zoo's
2. Homes, Fireplaces, Basements, Foundations, Garages, Sidewalks, Patios, Decks

Core drilling services in North Carolina

for the core drill bit sizes of 1 inch to 14 inches diameter in most concrete formed buildings, foundations, and structures.

with a straight mount core drill rig

These are some beautiful pictures of Boone, NC where we core drilled a hole through a patio wall. We used a smart level to get the angle of the holes to be drilled and wood wedges under the base at the back to raise the core drilling rig to 5 degrees or so. The object of completion was to let rainwater off the patio and over the hill when heavy storms come through the area. Previously the rainwater was piling up at the patio low spot and it could get as high a 12 inches before it would reach the edge of the stone deck and begin to overflow off the patio on its own. Mounting the core drill rig 2 inches below the level floor line on the outside of the wall and at the angle, we were able to make a scuffer that allowed the rainwater to now freely flow off the deck and not flood the inside of the house as it had been doing before. The wall measured at 20 inches which meant we had to core drill a total of 25 inches at the angle that was set. We use this method of core drilling at an angle for most of our work. Hardly ever are walls that even though they appear to be flat are often not. The video was taken to show the core drill in action. You might notice the core drill rig is mounted upside down, this allowed us enough room to set up the machine to get the right-center for where we wanted to come out at. Sometimes we have to use our custom welded concrete wedge anchors that we make back in our shop to get the correct angle that we need to be able to come out on where we would like. We welded two 7 inch wedge anchors together to make a 14-inch beast that can go deep into the wall so it will hold everything in place while the core drill hole is being made.

What makes a core drill bit dull?

If you found this post then you have a problem. Your core drill bit is dull. I am specifically speaking about wet-cutting with diamond embedded teeth core drill bits. The type used on core drill motors that are in general are 120 volts, 15 to 20 amp, and made to drill holes in reinforced concrete walls, footers, brick walls, concrete floors, and foundations on construction sites or households.

Theoretically a core drill bit is supposed to be self-sharpening. Embedded diamonds in the metal teeth of the bit becoming exposed as the metal holding the diamonds gets ground away in a circular motion cutting the concrete.

Possible non-core drill bit related causes.

1. Use the correct core drill motor for the hole size being drilled. Every electric-powered core drill motor has a rating for the size hole it is capable of drilling starting from smallest to largest. This is related to the RPM of possible speed settings if so equipped.
2. Enough water pressure to push the slurry out of the hole. The way core drilling works is for the water to come through the water inlet down the spindle into the interior of the core drill bit where it cools the teeth and expels the slurry
3. Hooking to the right electrical connection Most electric-powered core drill motors need a minimum 30 amp breaker to drill hole sizes larger than 3-inch.
4. The core drill bit has already drilled too many shallow holes. When engaged in coring not only do the teeth of the bit become worn away but also the metal of the interior and exterior of the bit barrel itself. In other words, the bit becomes smaller at the tip.

If none of these issues are adding to your dull core drill bit problems

and you already know that not using enough water is the fastest way to glaze your bit.

And that too much water will not let the bit get warm enough to cause the friction needed to wear away the metal composition of the diamond teeth and expose new diamonds for cutting.

Or, is it summertime? Water running through a garden hose heats up in the summer sun. If the water is too hot the bit will glaze quickly.

Notable disclaimer

^{Not all the methods to sharpening a core drill bit presented in this article would you find on a recommended list of ways to correctly put an edge to your bit. But you have tried those methods already and that's why you are here.}

Common Causes

Too much pressure

most likely caused by misalignment of the core drill rigs carriage and shaft.

Check to see if the base hasn't slightly moved or that there is too much play on the carriage. Also if you are using a small shaft rig and bend the shaft too much it will cause it to drill harder.

Wrong grade of core drill bit

Opposite of what most people think in core drilling terms soft bonds for hard materials and metals. Hard bond for soft materials.

Check to see if your supplier has access to the type of core drill bits you need. Most suppliers and retailers will stock general grade, medium bond core drill bits. This may not be what you need.

Not enough pressure

most likely you can not lock your rig down because of the material being drill.

Contrary to the good book of core drilling, not always can you lock, anchor, or vacuum seal your core drill base down to what is being drilled.

Traditional core drill bit sharpening methods

Using a cinder block

If you read the handbook when you bought your machine the traditional way to sharpen up a core drill bit is to run your bit dry through the cinder block a few times and this will expose new diamonds.

Lessen water flow for a short time.

Slow the water flow down to a trickle, apply a bit more pressure on the handle, and slowly add water as the bit picks up speed and starts cutting again.

Add coarse sand to the hole in the kerf and lessen water flow as aforementioned

How we keep our bits sharp

Start the core drill, touch the bit to the concrete and slowly turned the water on until it reaches one-quarter inch deep then set the water valve open enough to have good running pressure the size hole you are drilling and your bit should stay sharp. Check the color and temperature of the slurry so make sure the bit stays cool but not so cool that it won't refresh the diamond matrix.

Non-Traditional core drill bit sharpening methods

Using a claw hammer

If you are like most core drillers a cinder block is not available or the option of lessening the water advice just is not working. In the picture above you see the bit turned upside down and a claw hammer gently tapping on the edge of the teeth to chip away some of the metal holding the diamonds so they can be freed to cut again. This idea is offered because many core drill projects are done by someone who does not operate a core drill very often and is in a pinch and the most common tool is the claw hammer. Please! Do not hit them so hard they will break but a few good licks should roughen up the teeth enough to cut a little better.

Slightly score with a grinder.

In the video one of the crew is sharpening a 7-inch core bit. What you want to do is make scores across the diamond embedded teeth, not too many but just enough to be able to let new metal become exposed and wear away as the core drill bit cuts the concrete hole. The claw hammer method is not quite as effective but works just well in a pinch. Another trick for sharpening a wet cutting diamond core drill bit is to pour a little dish soap in the kerf of the cut hole and a smidge of water to make an abrasive paste that will deglaze the bit and let it cut better.