Glass Drilling

"HOW TO DRILL FOR A BULKHEAD FITTING IN GLASS:

Drilling a hole for a bulkhead fitting in acrylic is pretty straightforward, but drilling glass is a little trickier. It can be done by anyone with patience as long as you follow our easy steps. Drilling tanks is an easy way to make some extra cash by drilling tanks for friends. To save $$$, a club could purchase a hole saw for its members. You will need a diamond tipped hole saw, drill, drill ring, sandpaper and saw lubricant.

1. Make sure the glass you will be drilling is NOT tempered. Tempered glass will shatter on contact.
2. Figure out where you need the hole and mark with a magic marker.
3. Place the drill ring around the hole.
4. Drill. The easiest way to do this is using a variable speed rechargeable drill. This way, you can start slow and then speed up. Start slowly, allowing the hole saw to scribe the hole that you want without walking all over the glass. Drill slowly like this until the scribe is about 1/16"" deep.
5. Put a few ounces of drill lubricant into the drill ring. You can now speed up on the drill. DO NOT apply a lot of pressure. Let the saw do the cutting. Rock the drill slightly so the drill does not bind while it cuts. Keep the saw wet. When the saw starts to break through the opposite side, back off the pressure and let the saw cut through. Place a piece of cardboard or a towel under the hole so the cut glass does not drop onto the other side glass. When through drilling, use a small piece of sandpaper to dress the hole to avoid stress cracks. Wash the tank out to remove the lubricant. Be careful, remember the saw ""dust"" you see is actually ground glass.

Follow these steps and you will have no problems. You can drill a hole in a 180 gal tank (5/8"" glass) in about 5 minutes.

We have drilled hundreds of tanks over the years with only 1 breakage (it was tempered).

Due to the nature of the product, there are NO RETURNS ON ANY DRILL BITS

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