Since it likely is my only use ever for it, I went cheap and ordered one off of the internet. Not surprising, it was Chinese. The surprise was it was shipped directly from China. Took a while to get here. Arrived day before yesterday when the temperature was 20 degrees! Yesterday was in the 50's so I put it to use.
My bench top drill press turns way too fast so used a hand held variable speed drill motor. The hole is not pretty but it is drilled and functional. The drill worked very good. Drilling from both sides, the material was 1/4 inch, also worked fine.

One detriment: I had measured the distance between steps locally and found it to be 3/16 inch. On the Chinese unit it is barely 1/8 inch.

Jack

Happy to hear you got the hole drilled Jack. Keep warm buddy!

Thanks Larry,

Not hard to keep warm here! To have four days in the 60's later this week! I have seeding to do which I wanted to make a frost seeding however the ground is thawed and no snow in sight! Had a full two inches the other day which was the heaviest all season. We are over 14 inches below normal for the year. Started welding the assembly back together today.

Jack

Glad it worked out, I've encountered the same problems with stuff from china, takes forever to get hear and it is junk, if you ever need to do some more drilling do yourself a favor and check out Drill Hog their stuff is American made and it is fully warranted and prices are very reasonable.God Bless, Beth and Allen.

I have to say this bit is not the junk I have seen from China before. Apparently they have stolen some more production secrets. It drilled fine for the one hole but I could have used the longer length on the steps. Nothing a half round did not cure in a few minutes.

I did look Drill Hog up and it certainly appears they would be the way to go for permanency.

Thanks for the advice. Basically I forged ahead based on what you wrote.

Jack

The quality on some of the tools from the "land of almost right" does seem to be improving, Jack. For buying tools that you may not use often, it's like buying from Harbor Freight. I needed a M14x1 LH die that I could not find locally and ordered online. It came from China but did the re-threading job that I needed very well.

Good Morning Ed,
Just found your message as I still am not getting notified when new mail arrives. I agree the Chinese now produce much better steel. Used to be the only good use for their tools was to see how far you could throw them.
Reminds me of a set of Open End Wrenches my mother gave me when I was 15, just after WW II. I've skinned my knuckles with every one of those!

Jack, check your spam folder and see if notification emails are not being sent there. If so, simply mark them as "not spam" a few times and that should train your spam filter to deliver the notifications to your inbox.

Just realized I did get notification on your last message!

Thanks Ed,

Nothing in the spam folder. This has gone on every since we discussed it weeks (months-?) ago.
I have another annoying thing also. When I read a message the title is normally then shown in a Pink color rather than the normal Blue. That no longer happens unless I open the message at least twice!

Jack

The last step drill bit I got from Drill Hog has drilled over 50 holes and not in a drill press and still going strong.