Diablo Rebar Cutting Rotary Hammer Bit

Finally I can stick with one bit when I'm drilling concrete and it doesn't matter if I hit rebar. It does take awhile to drill through rebar and you don't want to force the tool. I had to keep separate rebar cutting bits in the van because on quite a few remodel projects the engineer had us add hold downs. That required drilling deep holes to epoxy the threaded rod. You can't just drill a hole a few inches away if you hit rebar, the hole needs to be exactly where the engineer specifies and its checked at special inspection.

The bit sure gets hot, but it does the job as you can see in this video. These bits work because they are made with Dura Carbide. Heat kills regular bits, and if you have ever tried to drill rebar with a regular bit you know this. The 4 cutter bit can handle the much higher temperatures of drilling steel.

[granworks]

Hitting rebar is maddening! It turns a straightforward 1 minute drilling session into 10 minutes of skull-vibrating agony. I did get a "will cut rebar, too" bit the last time -- I think it was a Bosch variety? It does work, but it still takes a very notable amount of time.

This is SURELY not the right procedure, but what I ended up doing is this:

1. Drill until I clearly hit rebar. Immediately stop.
2. Shift the bit over by 1/2" and back by a couple of inches and drill again
3. The 1/2" shift will 90% of the time mean that the rebar is missed with the second hole
4. Fill in the original hole with epoxy

That did mean that my anchor placement wasn't quite as precise as I'd like, but the ease-of-drilling savings made it worth it for most anchors and I would just bear down and suffer for those that needed to be precise!

[acdnintheusa]

Great post Tim. I like the longer, educational format. Good stuff!

[MrCaribe]

I've used these. They're well worth the money.

[Jacob_Dwyer]

Slick, and chiming in late without thoroughly reading the comments so forgive me if someone already said this but
Hilti makes a "full carbide" sds plus (rotohammer) bit that has the big plus sign of carbide in the tip I'd be interested to see how well it does v. rebar (I have not hit any of note with any of my full carbide bits so no data). They charge enough for their bits (and specifically full carbide tips) and they are markedly more durable that I only buy full carbide from like Milwaukee for example) and I am not punching reinforced concrete with blind rebar all day. And from the description of how you guys rotohammer, you aren't doing hole after hole to really hot up your gear (noted that the heat will transfer from the bit to your tool and can't have the best heh impact on your rotohammer) but if you do even handheld spraybottle with water can make a big difference. Even dropping the bit in water can help the whole system. Thanks, Awesome!

[shaunybonny]

Idk man I’ve been sitting on a piece of rebar with one of these for like 15-20 minutes and still not through it.

[ppk]

Do you have any idea as to why I’d still be getting held up while using the Diablo bit? The best answer I could find is that the concrete I was working on had large bits of aggregate throughout.

[James-poed]

So I'm sitting here drilling for the last 35 minutes and still haven't made it through the rebar, on my 2nd set of batteries

[drpeemac]

Thanks for the reminder that we dont want selica in our lungs

[jkainoal]

Since you are first drilling concrete you normally run the hammer/drill setting. It looked to me from watching that when you hit rebar you didn’t stop to switch to the drill only setting. Is that correct? Because traditionally when you switch to the rebar cutting bit you only operate the gun in drill mode. With this Diablo bit does it require to change from hammer/drill to drill while cutting rebar or do you just keep drilling? That was a great video demonstration by the way!

[humblecourageous]

If you need to drill a 3 inch hole for a rainwater pipe that has to go through an old swimming pool twice, can you drill say 4 holes and chip it out to make it a three inch? It doesn't need to be exact.

[robertgreensalad]

It’s easy when u have to drill down, next time try overhead

[petermelnyk]

Annnd where was this shit 20 years and a shoulder ago ?

[demoe]

Would hate to see that drill hammer being jammed and slam it out of your hands. Damage the wrist severely. Nice video's btw

[bernhardschwarz]

Einen Kronenbohrer zum bohren durch Betonstahl kenne ich schon seit meiner Lehre, das war 1958.Also nichts Neues.

[ChristopherJewels-fg]

You obviously don’t use hammer drills too often. You overheated the bit. Unreal 🤬