How to drill a hole into a ceramic basin (Sink) Drilling a basin to install a tap

[365drills]

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Above is our final location and you can see a typical contemporary basin holder for a bathroom. Ready to accept the basin.
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Upside down and you can see our basin has FOUR potential sites for the tap. Note if you use our drills your choice is unlimited because you can drill a hole where you like. But the client has marked his taps in the middle. So we will follow the guide made by the basin manufacture.
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To make life easier we put the basin on the unit (still upside down) and ready for drilling
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Close up shot of the slug to be drilled out. Note we ALWAYS get the client to mark the area to save any embarrassing mistakes. Its easy when turning these units upside down to get in a muddle as to what is being drilled. Mark the spot and CHECK it.
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Now its drilling time... We fitted a 38mm diamond core from the PORSADRILL range to a battery operated hand drill. Notice we are not using our yellow template guide and that's because the hole is pre-drilled so no guidance is needed. We just follow what's there.

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Fill the area with water and then plunge the diamond core drill into the hole. You can start to drill. DO IT SLOWLY and with the clutch ring set to medium on the drill. That means of the bit gets caught the drill will slip rather than bite into the ceramic and chip the hole or break the basin.
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If you don't use enough water the drill gets too hot and you will reduce the lifespan of the diamond core. Please use water! The advice we give is that if the drill mix looks like toothpaste its running too hot and sticky. You want to see it looking like milk.
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Great progress. The hole is forming slowly
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Here is a set back shot to show you the difference between the mfr punchout hole (to the right) and our slowly forming hole (middle). So we do NOT want to punch out and risk spoiling the glaze on the other side. Time to turn the unit over...

 

[365drills]

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You can see where we have made progress through but to make a great looking hole lets drill down from the front. At this point you need the yellow plastic "anti-slip" drill guide to stop the diamond core holesaw from drifting on the basin. We supply this with the set.

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Finish the drilling again with the use of plenty of water.

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You will get perfect results every time. The diamond cores accurately bore the hole into the basin to make a very neat job of the unit.
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Here is the slug removed from the battery hand drill and the diamond core. And placed on the basin so that you can see how accurate the drilling was. Perfect hole in that basin. No cracks or chips.
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And the sink, pre-fitted into its cradle looks ready for its final installation (And maybe a bit of a clean up...)

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To drill the 38mm hole we had in our van the ULTIMATE tile drilling set and selected the correct size core. We sell many sizes of diamond core drills at *********. Our box sets are very popular. But we also sell a small clamshell pack of drills called the bathroom fitters kit which suits most installers.​

http://www.*********.com/jpgs/kit2.jpg