West End Gate Development

Berkeley Groups’ prestigious West End Gate development in Paddington, London required thousands of 12mm holes to be drilled onsite in 12mm thick galvanised steel in order to mount glazing brackets.

Cement particle board was being used as a covering over the steel, thus preventing the use of magnetic drills.

The construction team had been using cheap twist drill bits in cordless, hand-held drills to make the holes required but...

The process had been a time-consuming sequence of drilling

Thousands of holes were being drilled three times resulting in slow results.

In addition, operators were quickly burning through drill bits and at the larger hole sizes the bits would snag, wrenching the operator’s wrist, causing injury.

To reduce drilling time & improve operator safety, HMT suggested

The TurboTip's stepped tip meant pilot drilling was no longer required and a single 12mm bit could be used for the whole operation, completing the hole in a single pass.

Time spent changing drill bits and redrilling the same hole was eliminated, whilst the TurboTip bits themselves performed twice as fast as the traditional twist drills.