Bolting two sleepers together - how to drill the holes?

[Ali]

Having done exactly this a long auger will work as suggested (with any long spade bit the shaft will wander). If you know of a local company doing oak framing I'd be tempted to pop in and ask nicely if they'll blow a few holes in it with a chain morticer.

 

[Gareth J]

Auger bit, as mentioned, with a helper to keep the thing square. Keep checking with a set square.

Oil the bit to make the battery last longer/drill less smokey.

Wouldn't bother trying to go from both sides as measuring to start the hole will be so hard on such rough wood.

Drill the hole as oversize as you can hide with a washer. Maybe ~19mm hole for M12 all thread. All thread will bend a bit to cope with wandering. Even if you need to widen the inner holes to get things to line up near enough, so long as you can get a nut on both ends, should pull together fine.

Hope it's an outdoor exhibition, not everyone likes the smell of old sleepers!

 

[Onoff]

Wouldn't bother trying to go from both sides as measuring to start the hole will be so hard on such rough wood.

Hence my suggestion of putting tape on first as in something to mark on.

 

[Keithmac]

Consider using dome nuts as they offer fewer laceration possibilities to wayward ankles. Also consider large penny washers as that allows you to use well oversized holes (e.g. you could drill 100mm deep from both sides with a large, standard length bit and then drill the middle 100mm in two 50mm bites with a long series but smaller diameter bit or even using a wobbly extension). A red hot poker would civilise any misalignment of the holes.

Man up, stop talking, break out your grandad's brace and bits and start drilling.

They are sometimes listed as "Acorn Nuts" as well. Nice smooth safe ends to the studding.

 

[Gareth J]

Hence my suggestion of putting tape on first as in something to mark on.

It's more that there are no crisps edges to reference from. You could clad the outside in ply, to get something decent to measure off, but considering the inside sides of the holes won't be seen, it's not worth it imo

 

[8ob]

I use a petrol gut buster and gurt wood bit on big gate posts, dont think I would attempt like this with a cordless or anything less than a gut buster.

 

[Agroshield]

You can also use a chunk off 4x4 timber drilled to size centrally on a drill press a then clamp it on as the drill guide...

That is a good idea. If you put a screw in each corner of the block so its head faced the sleeper, you could use them as adjusting jacks to make the block square to the direction of the hole and not wobble (same as the jacking bolts on the base of a diamond drilling rig or how you set up a line boring bearing). The surface of the sleeper could be like a ploughed field and it would not matter. Once adjusted, clamp the block to the sleeper using two ratchet straps.

 

[bricol]

Hope it's an outdoor exhibition, not everyone likes the smell of old sleepers!

You know the dark staining? Possibly with flecks of what looks like multi-colours bits of paint?

Train toilets used to just dump straight out the bottom . . . just saying . . .

 

[Agroshield]

Train toilets used to just dump straight out the bottom . . .

Human beings continue to dump straight out of the bottom. Also just sayin'...

 

[jmp49]

I was helping build a retaining wall using old hardwood sleepers as uprights, and sleepers stacked & off set to make steps up garden.
Guy building it would drill with a long Auger (hard going but his Makita battery tool managed!).
To pin/peg the sleepers down, offcuts of Rebar were walloped through the guide hole with a BFH .
You could use threaded bar & nuts/washers to clamp sleepers together.

I did some "garden edging" like that, fired through the old heavy beam timbers using a old thin masory bit in a sds, open it up with the bfd masonry bit, then bent up long U rebar and just pinned them the floor. They stand being nudged with the mower deck twice a month just fine. I hate woodwork

 

[Mark 5]

Me, I would take a chance, clamp sleepers together, then use a couple of longest lengths of these a flat bit size of your choice, a couple of them maybe, simple and quick.

Just retract and tighten grub screws every so often.

 

[brightspark]

Y

Train toilets used to just dump straight out the bottom . . . just saying . . .

sh,it appens they used to be a notice on trains dont use the crapper in stations . nowt worse than looking at george the 3ds

 

[julianf]

They may well have been covered in @#it at some point, but, in the history of time, the cup of tea that im currently drinking was probably someone elses pi## too!

Theyre supposed to look a bit battered, so i dont want to feed them through the sander any more, but ill DA sand them a bit more on the flats later.


Who knows what they are - again, some sort of south american hardwood that probably cant be imported without CITES documents etc any more.

(theyre less red in reality, which is nicer - camera has done odd things to the colour)

 

[julianf]

With my (un)happy helper -

I dont think my drum sander is really meant for this kind of work!

 

[julianf]

Looking though my phone, this is how they looked in the yard. I dont know if this is one of them, but they were all pretty similar.

 

[Cobbler]

sh,it appens they used to be a notice on trains dont use the crapper in stations . nowt worse than looking at george the 3ds

Please refrain from urination
While the train is in the station
If a penny you must squander
To the platform you must wander.

 

[Ali]

I think the timber will be Jarrah.