Tested cheap step drills from China. Not expected

  • May 06, 2021

Recently I was looking for a tool on Aliexpress and accidentally stumbled upon step drills. They were sold in a set for a very low price. What caught my attention was a lot of positive feedback. I doubted the quality of a Chinese product, because in the store such drills are several times more expensive. I decided on personal experience to check how the Chinese step drills correspond to the declared characteristics.

Set of purchased drills
Set of purchased drills

The set includes 3 different drills. It cost me a ridiculous amount - a little more than 300 rubles. And then my package arrived, which contained the following items:

  • 5-stage drill with a diameter of 4 - 12 millimeters;
  • 10-stage drill with a diameter of 3 - 12 millimeters;
  • 9-stage drill with a diameter of 4 - 20 millimeters.

The website stated that these drills are suitable for working with plastic, steel, wood and other materials. I started testing the product.

Drilling plastic

At first I decided to drill through plastic and wood. Step drills coped with the task with a bang.

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Drilling wood

Then heavier artillery went into action - steel. I took a profile pipe with a wall thickness of 2 mm and made several holes in it. The drills did their job perfectly again.

Drilled profile tube

Then I moved on to a more difficult task - drilling stainless steel. In the garage I found a scrap from a medical stainless steel sterilizer and easily drilled a hole in it with a Chinese drill.

Medical stainless steel

Since the drills with thin metals have easily "won", I decided to proceed with the experiments more seriously. Took a 10mm steel plate.

Plate 10 mm thick

I turned on the drill at low speed and got to work. The result suits me perfectly.

10mm steel drilled without problem

It can be concluded that step drills can make holes in metal sheets, the thickness of which does not exceed 10 millimeters.

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