Drilling Rubber Sheet

Drill bits for plastic are available in a variety of sizes.

Drilling rubber sheet.

Tighten the vice to keep it stable. Insert the rubber between the work station and vice. Rubber processing is common in the automotive industry where holes are drilled in rubber car door seals and material is cut for windscreen wiper blades. Drill presses also come with beefy cast iron tables with tilt and height adjustments and allow a variety of clamping options.

Also always reduce the drill speed as the drill bit exits the material. However it s best to consult with a professional before undertaking a project on your own. I suggest you to start with a silicone rubber sheet since silicone appears to cut best with needles you will then need to experiment with feedrate and spindle speed but usually higher spindle speeds and lower feedrates work better. Machining rubber is hard using the usual drilling milling techniques for wood and metal.

When drilling plastic the larger the hole the slower drill speed you should use since high speeds can melt the plastic. Step 2 place the rubber onto the work surface. The most important part of drilling rubber is to keep it from moving during the drilling process. Speed changes are as easy as opening the lid and moving a rubber belt from one pulley to another.

Other applications include drilling holes in silicone baby bottle teats and cutting sheets of rubber to make gaskets seals and other components. Step 1 mark the desired drill area of the rubber with a permanent marker. The most expensive drill presses are floor standing models but you can buy a decent benchtop unit for about 100. I typically cut at feedrates of 200 400 mm min setting spindle speed at 16000 rpm see the initial video.

Using a rotary dremel style tool and a lathe here a nice hole is m. The mat is almost 1 4 inch thick so that is going to take some doing. Thinking also about chucking up the 1 4 hole punch in a drill and trying it that way but have some misgivings about that method. It achieves an ideal balance to create an all purpose weather resistant rubber.

Of course just drilling it wouldn t work very well either.