How to Use Drill to Cut Horizontally (as a Dremel Replacement)

This is a quick hack to help you cut horizontally when you don’t have any horizontal cutting tool or dremel with you.

This project is a result of our sheer resourcefulness when we were in dire need of cutting some acrylic sheets and wood blocks, and didn’t have access to Dremel or wood cutters.

Tools Required:

1. A Drill Machine

2. One Nut

3. One Bolt

4. One Rotary Blade

5. One Metallic Washer

6. Two - Four plastic Washers

7. A wrench

You would be able to source these materials very easily from local hardware shops or may find them in your garage only.

So, let’s get started.

Step 1 : Take the bolt and insert the nut.
Use a wrench to tighten it completely to the Bolt’s Head. The purpose of adding a nut here is to ensure the sturdiness of the arrangement as it would offer a larger area as compared to bolt’s head.

Step 2 : Now insert a metallic washer, followed by a plastic washer. The metallic washer acts as a locking washer here. The plastic washer is used to reduce vibrations.

Step 3 : Now, insert the blade into it.
Make sure that all the components are secured properly.

Step 4 : Now put another plastic washer, followed by the second nut. Use wrench to tighten the nut.

Step 5 : Use this assembly as a modified ‘(drill) bit’ and put it as usual in the chuck.

Step 6 :Get on your safety glasses, power on the drill and start cutting.

A word of caution, due to repeated operation the assembly may get loose.Keep a wrench handy to fix it by tightening the bolts.

Couple of things can be further improved :

1. The metallic washer can also be added before second nut. That should make the arrangement more stable and balanced.

2. The half threaded bolt can be used which would give a better grip when inserted in Drill's chuck.