

Masonry bits are obviously the place to start when looking for something capable of drilling concrete. This is important because concrete creates a heck of a lot of dust. You will definitely want a bit with a slightly wider tip than the shaft, and ideally the tip will be coated in tungsten carbide for durability.įour-flute designs can also be helpful, as they pull dust out of the hole more efficiently. Most commonly, they have a wider tip, allowing for easier penetration of super-hard surfaces. Masonry drill bits come in a few different shapes and sizes. It’s not compatible with SDS or SDS+ drill bits. There is also “SDS heavy”, which is a completely separate type of drill bit used for heavy masonry work. SDS+ is an improvement on the original SDS design, and it’s what most modern drills use. Note that these days, most bits are sold as “SDS+” instead of just SDS.

Therefore, you shouldn’t buy SDS bits unless you have a compatible drill.

All rotary hammers for example use SDS drill bits. SDS drill bits will only work with SDS drills.

Photo by Emrys2 licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. Do I need an SDS drill bit? An SDS+ drill bit shank. It’s not known exactly what compound they use to coat their drill bit tips, but rock carbide is known for being incredibly tough – more so than some tungsten carbide tips. Rock carbide is a special term used by DeWalt, that refers to their patented version of carbide. It’s one of the toughest types of carbide, used for armor-piercing shells, and is twice as strong as steel. Tungsten carbide is a type of carbide, where tungsten as used as the metal in the compound. What’s the difference between carbide, rock carbide, and tungsten carbide?Ĭarbide is a name for a compound created of metal and carbon. This doesn’t mean that you should avoid these no-name drill bit tips completely, as some of them are actually quite good.Įven some of the big-name brands have started outsourcing their work to low-quality factories in China, meaning that they’re not necessarily going to make a tougher drill bit than a no-name brand. Some no-name companies fail to use the right carbide compound, or apply it improperly, resulting in a drill bit that becomes blunt very quickly. The toughest masonry drill bits come with a carbide tip.Īnother consideration is the brand. However, you will also want your drill bit to be as tough as possible, to ensure that it does not lose its sharpness over time.
#Concrete drill bit how to
How to find a durable drill bitĪs we just mentioned, for concrete, you will want to use the sharpest masonry bit you can find. We’ll discuss durability in the section below. It’s also important that your drill bit is tough enough to retain its sharpness over time. This is because concrete is often a lot harder than other types of masonry, especially material such as sandstone. It’s important that your drill bit is as sharp as it possibly can be. However, you cannot just use any old masonry bit. To drill through concrete, you will want to use a masonry bit. Why do I need a sharp drill bit for concrete? Now we’ll discuss some key things to consider when choosing a masonry drill bit for concrete. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.How To Choose The Best Drill Bit For Concrete You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.
