Aircraft Tools for Drilling

There are a wide range of drilling tools required for building a Van’s RV aircraft or any other experimental homebuilt airplane. These include a tabletop or stand-mounted drill press, air drill and battery powered drill. Also, you may need a variety of drill bits, countersinks, de-burring bits and other miscellaneous items like drill guides, hole saws, etc.

The drill press is needed for making small parts of wood, plexiglass, aluminum, steel or any other material you are using. The drill press allows accurate drilling of straight holes for torque tubes, control sticks, rudder pedals, bearing mounts and many other items. It is also an excellent tool to use for drilling and cutting out an instrument panel or a switch panel. For the panels it is recommended you use metal hole saws rather than a fly cutter on the larger holes. This will provide a much better cut out and these are safe to use. Place a piece of scrap wood under the part you are cutting or drilling to provide a good clean cut all the way through the panel.

An air drill for most aluminum applications needs to be fast. The faster the drill the easier it will be to drill holes for rivets and other fasteners. Minimum should be 2,600 RPM and you may easily go up to 6,000 RPM.

A battery drill is great for de-burring.

I will discuss drilling in more detail in future writings.