Anyone ever drill through slate?

[Houndstooth Game Calls]

Kind of curious if anyone has tried drilling through a slate sound board or slate in general? I drilled a peice the other day and it chipped as I figured wondering if there is a special bit or a little trick thanks in advance!-Lyle

[redarrow]

You probably need a water drill or saw.Like they use on ceramic floor tile.

[lightsoutcalls]

You probably need a water drill or saw.Like they use on ceramic floor tile.

You can find them on ebay.  I bought a set of 3 that were from around 1/4"-3/4" in size.  I placed the slate in a shallow container of water and drilled with a low speed and light pressure.  Let the bit do the work.  You may still have some fine chipping on the back side, but it will be greatly reduced.  The ones I bought have a small enough shank you can put them in a cordless drill.

[WillowRidgeCalls]

What I've done is pich your slate between two pieces of wood and drill down through the wood. It helps keep your drill straight, because a little bit of an angle will cause it to chip. Don't put much pressure down on your drill, let the drill do the work and use sharp drills.

[reddog]

I use a diamond bit for drilling glass . You can get them at Harbor Freight.com fairly cheap and they work great, I have drilled 100's of holes with mine.

[magnoliagamecalls]

I have used forstner bits with good success

[pappy]

All of the suggestions are spot on, I wanted to cut some 3 - 1/4" slate for calls from some old roofing slate, I bought one of the diamond dusted hole saws. I clamped my slate to a piece of plywood, ran water over it as I applied pressure to the hole saw, running the slowest speed on my drill press around 100 rpm, and it worked great. If you are gonna cut holes then I would suggest doing a combo of what Wendell and Scott were saying, place it between two pieces of wood, then slowly drill down, let the drill work. If you are getting chips or break offs, you could try to reshape the drill bit cutting degree to around 60 or barely and lightly take the very outer edge off the cutting tail, this is where a lot of grabbing comes from.