How to make an ice drill and other devices from a Stihl chainsaw with your own hands

What you need for work

It’s good if you can drill calmly and stop if you get tired. However, there are times when this is quite difficult to do. For example, the ground may be very frozen or when drilling an ice hole for ice fishing it may be very cold. In this case, there is a desire to do everything as quickly as possible, while spending as little effort as possible.

Is there a simple solution for this kind of drilling? Certainly. This is a connection between a drill and a chainsaw. The motor power of a modern chainsaw is very high; such a motor remains operational in almost all climatic conditions.

To combine you need:

• Boer;
• Chainsaw motor, can be taken from a circular saw;
• Gearbox – for transmitting torque;
• Pipe - for making the body;
• Welding apparatus;
• Grinding machine (grinder);
• Drill or screwdriver.

Advantages of a homemade motor drill

You can make a motorized drill yourself for those who have good metalworking skills and are familiar with turning. Costs will be minimal if you already have a chainsaw. It is enough to purchase an adapter for a screw auger and a gear worm gearbox. The gear ratio of the latter must be at least 1/55. There is no need for mechanical transmissions or couplings.

This technique has obvious advantages over professional tools:

Using a motor drill

• saving money;
• the ability to quickly and easily perform site improvement tasks;
• due to the low power of the motor, there is no need to additionally involve a specialist;
• homemade drill - light and mobile.

Some believe that a non-professional gas drill cannot be classified as a full-fledged technique, because the maximum possible diameter of the hole is no more than 150 mm. This value is quite sufficient for solving everyday problems. Of course, such a technique is not suitable for large-scale production.

Let's start with the gearbox

The choice of gearbox must be approached very responsibly: you cannot just take the first one you come across. The chainsaw engine is very powerful, and its speed is high. If the drill starts rotating at such a speed, it will simply be impossible for it to work. And if the gearbox transmits too low a torque to the output shaft, then using a chainsaw will be useless, because the rotation speed will remain low. That is why it is necessary to accurately and accurately calculate the characteristics of a suitable gearbox.

You can try reading technical literature and making this calculation yourself. And then make your own gearbox. But if you don’t have the time or desire, then you should contact a professional engineer who will not only perform the calculations correctly, but also help you choose the appropriate gearbox.

DIY ice ax from a screwdriver

Fishermen were able to improve the ice drill by attaching a screwdriver to it. They just realized what wasting precious time was worth, especially in winter.

To make it you need to have:

• Ice auger Mora (manual).
• Adapter.
• Cordless screwdriver.

Ice drill with screwdriver

As a rule, the optimal hole size is about 10 cm.

Characteristics of a screwdriver for an ice auger

An ice drill is a tool that can make winter fishing easier and more comfortable. To drill holes without problems, you need to select an appropriate screwdriver and, accordingly, a cordless one.

Tool characteristics

• High power.
• Supply voltage from 18 to 36 V.
• Torque 40/80 Nm.
• Battery capacity is 2.5-3 Ah.

For basic modernization of the drill, models such as Mora Nova System or Ise Arctic (Micro, Viking), Rapala are suitable. Domestic designs, such as Tornado, Barnaul, Tonar, are also suitable.

How to choose a screwdriver

As a rule, anglers make several holes, and sometimes several dozen, since winter fishing is a constant search for fish sites. Therefore, fishing turns into hard, exhausting work, and this cannot be compared with the pleasure received from the fishing process.

How to choose a battery

Basically, two types of power supply are used:

Nickel is cadmium, which tolerates sub-zero temperatures well, but makes the instrument heavier.

• Lithium-ion. The source can be operated at a temperature of -10ºС and with a small thickness of ice. Despite this, this source allows you to drill up to 60 holes with a diameter of 10-16 cm. At lower temperatures, the battery can be removed from the device and placed in an inside jacket pocket.
• Nickel - a metal hydride battery - is practically not used in screwdrivers.

It is advisable to always take a spare battery with you and keep it warm.

How to make an adapter with your own hands

The adapter or adapter is used to connect the screwdriver to the rest of the structure. It can be purchased at the store, or you can make it yourself.

The adapter has a hexagonal shape and one side is clamped into the screwdriver chuck. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the connection is reliable. The hexagonal part is clamped using a special key. The other side of the adapter connects to the drill. To do this, you need to drill a hole in the cylindrical part, after which a bolt of the appropriate size is taken and the auger with an adapter is secured.

It would be nice to have a handle that can be used to hold the drill and prevent it from falling into the water. You should not make the screw with a large diameter, as this increases the load on the screwdriver, which will lead to rapid discharge of the battery. The optimal diameter of the hole is 10-13 cm, which will allow you to catch medium-sized fish. The adapter has the following dimensions: the diameter of the cylindrical part is 18 mm, the shank has a hexagon shape, a stop is required.

Assembling the body

The first step is to make a strong body. To do this, you need to take a metal pipe and bend a frame from it. I used the following manufacturing algorithm:

1. First, I measured the required piece from the pipe: it should be equal to the perimeter of the frame (approximately 160 cm);
2. I made cuts on it with a depth of approximately 1.3 pipe radii. Incisions are made at the fold points. In order for the metal pipe to be easily bent, 4 to 6 cuts should be made for each bend, half a centimeter apart from each other. If the right angle does not come out well when bent, you will have to grind off the cuts made a little with a grinder;
3. I welded the corners and joints with a welding machine.

According to the described algorithm, it is necessary to make another frame (with a perimeter of 40 cm) and connect the manufactured frames to each other. The distance between the planes of the frames should be approximately a third of a meter. It is imperative to ensure that the corners of the frames are connected by pieces of pipe of the same size.

This will result in a structure in the shape of a truncated quadrangular pyramid. The gearbox will be firmly fixed in this housing. But here the thing is, you yourself will have to modify the housing depending on which gearbox you choose.

Preparation of equipment and materials

Before making a drill from a chainsaw, you should carefully prepare the materials and tools necessary for the work. For materials you will need:

• A serviceable household chainsaw;
• Gearbox;
• Solid steel sheet, or plywood, 2 cm thick;
• Set of various fasteners;
• Metal tube;
• Steel pipe, diameter 15 cm;
• Metal tube, 25 cm long;
• Steel auger;
• Rubberized insulation for the handle.

To work on making a motor drill from a chainsaw, be sure to prepare the following tools:

• Head for 27;
• Screwdriver;
• Bulgarian;
• Electric jigsaw;
• Grinding machine;
• Welding machine;
• A set of nozzles for working with metal.

To create some parts for a motor drill from a chainsaw, you will need a lathe, so you need to agree in advance with a specialist in the manufacture of metal parts.

Motor: removable or non-removable

So, there is a drill, a chainsaw engine and a gearbox in a strong and reliable case. Now they need to be connected to each other. And here the question arises: how will the engine be used?

If the engine will be used only for drilling, then the structure can be made monolithic: the engine will not be removed from the structure.

However, this decision seems somewhat strange. After all, you will probably need to use a chainsaw someday, which means you will have to return the engine to its place. Therefore, it is better to leave the ability to remove the engine from a homemade housing as needed.

In order to obtain this opportunity, you need to make holes in the housing to install the engine. The hole must match the dimensions of the chainsaw engine.

In addition, it is very important to consider a reliable fastening system. The engine mount should be strong, but it shouldn't be a horribly time consuming process to insert or remove the engine. Ideally, it should be like this: unscrew two or three nuts, lift the frame, pull out the motor (or insert the motor, lower the frame, screw in the nuts).

When making a design, you need to take into account not only the size of the chainsaw, but also the convenience of refueling and valve control to control the pressure in the engine.

Old model chainsaw

The advantage of the old model chainsaw is that now there are few people willing to work with it. Therefore, taking its engine and making a drill with a motor is a very good solution. In this case, the engine can be fixed permanently in the frame structure.

Mounting the engine this way is much easier. It will be convenient to bring the fuel supply to the frame, which is located on top. It is best to connect the system to the same frame for emergency shutdown.

Of course, if the drill is needed to drill through ice, such precautions are not necessary. But for drilling the earth, emergency shutdown is very important. The soil may be so hard that the drill must be stopped immediately.

The Ural engine is good for the drill (it requires minimal modifications), but there is one drawback - only a person of average or tall height can work comfortably with it.

You can use the motor from the units Druzhba, Shtil, Partner.

My practice shows that it is better not to use a chain drive to organize the transmission of torque from the engine to the gearbox. It is optimal to make the shaft, taking into account the original dimensions. You can make such a shaft to order from a turner.

Making a compact drill from a chainsaw: instructions and step-by-step description of the work

Many of us at our dacha used a simple hand auger.

What if the hole in the ground needs to be made deeper, and the soil is very dense? Or do you need to drill a lot of holes for posts to build a fence? Just for such situations, to save effort and time, we suggest you make a compact drill from a chainsaw. It is necessary to combine two units - a gasoline-powered rotary drive and an auger.

What materials and tools are needed?

To make a chainsaw drill we will need:

• gasoline engine from a chainsaw
• gearbox for changing gear ratio and torque
• auger drill
• metal pipe
• circular saw "grinder"
• drill
• welding machine

Calculation of the future gas drill

A calculation must be made to check the compatibility of the parameters of the gasoline engine and gearbox. The motor shaft rotates at very high speed. The gearbox's task is to reduce this speed, while increasing the power, which is exactly what is needed for drilling dense and viscous earth. If you do not have experience in carrying out such calculations, then contact a specialist.

As a result of the calculations obtained, it will be possible to select the most efficient gearbox for the engine. If you have engineering knowledge and experience in this area, then you can not only calculate the compliance of the engine with the gearbox, but also make the gearbox yourself.

But given the loads and the importance of stable operation, it is still safer to purchase an industrial-made gearbox.

Assembly: connect the drill to the chainsaw

Having checked by calculation the theoretical compatibility of the engine with the gearbox, we begin assembling the product - connecting the auger drill to the chainsaw. To securely fasten the gas drill elements, you need to make a strong frame housing. For this purpose we use a metal pipe. We make transverse cuts on the pipe with a depth slightly greater than the radius of the pipe.

To make the pipe bend easily, you need to make about 5 cuts at a distance of 5 mm from each other. If a right angle cannot be obtained due to too wide pipe fragments, bore the slots with a grinder. We bend the pipe along the resulting cuts. You need to get a rectangle measuring 35x45 cm. Use the same method to make a frame measuring 10x10 cm.

We weld the corners on both frames to increase the strength of both structures.

motor drill frame with gearbox

Two metal frames must be connected one above the other so that a figure resembling a truncated pyramid is obtained, the distance between the frames should be 30 cm. We connect the corners of the frames by welding four pieces of metal pipe. The center of the resulting structure will house the engine and gearbox.

The above dimensions, angles and relative positions of structural elements may differ in each specific case, since we do not know the dimensions of the units that you will use.

We mount the engine

Before fixing the engine in a welded frame structure, you need to decide whether it will be removable or stationary. If you have plans to use the gasoline engine somewhere else - for example, in the same chainsaw, then the engine should be quickly and easily removed.

To temporarily but securely fix the engine, you can use different methods - bolts and nuts, a clamping frame, clamps, staples, etc. If you were able to make a welded mounting frame from metal pipes, then choosing a way to securely mount the engine with the ability to quickly dismantle it will not be a problem.

As in the case of the frame, we cannot give the exact dimensions of the fastening elements; all such structures are individual with some external similarity.

general view of the motor drill

In general, we can only draw attention to the fact that the bodies of gasoline saws are made of plastic. The softness of this material complicates the organization of a reliable collapsible system for fixing the engine and gearbox in the frame, taking into account the strong vibration of the product in operating mode. Be sure to place the throttle control assembly comfortably.

Are old chainsaws still needed today?

Probably, many people have old chainsaws of the “Friendship” type lying in their sheds and storage rooms. For a long time it was a pity to throw away the saw, but it came in handy for making a drill. This saw has a fairly powerful and, importantly, low-speed engine. There should be no difficulties with mounting such an engine.

We install the fuel supply control handle on the upper (smaller) frame. The soil is very uneven in its structure - layers of varying density and viscosity, stones, roots, etc.

The drill can jump off, suddenly increase speed, or move to the side, so we strongly recommend placing an emergency engine shutdown system next to the fuel supply control mechanism.

old chainsaw "Friendship"

Some old Soviet saws are quite large, which requires an increase in the size of the gas drill. Before starting work, consider whether it will be convenient to operate such a structure. Otherwise, the Druzhba, Ural and similar chainsaws are quite suitable for our task.

Torque transmission: chain or shaft?

To transmit torque from the motor to the gearbox, experts and practitioners do not recommend using a chain drive. This solution is not very reliable and unsafe. It is best to use an intermediate shaft to transfer force from the engine to the gearbox. This part is not very complicated, and if you cannot find it, you can order it from a familiar turner.

The question often arises about using a flexible shaft. The convenience of such a part is obvious - you do not need to precisely adjust the location of the engine and gearbox, you can place them at your discretion. However, unlike rigid metal parts, any flexible products have reduced mechanical strength and reliability.

In principle, a flexible shaft can be used in a homemade drill on a gasoline engine. The only question is what the rotation speed will be and what maximum force will be applied to the shaft. And what will happen to the entire structure if this force is applied.

In any case, the flexible shaft must be separated from the operator by a durable protective cover.

motor drill gear chain

The design will be simpler if the flexible shaft must transmit rotation not from the engine to the gearbox, but from the gearbox to the drill.

In this case, the shaft can be hidden in a pipe, which simultaneously plays the role of a structural structural element and a protective casing. Rotation speeds with this option are lower.

Considering the flexibility of the shaft, it is possible, if necessary, to create a non-standard design where the drill and drive are not coaxial.

We attach the auger drill

The auger drill must be secured very securely. This is easier to do than fixing the engine in the frame. A metal pipe most often serves as a durable structural element.

The drill is not permanently attached to the shaft, but so that it can be removed and replaced with a product of a different configuration - a coil, a chisel, a spoon drill, etc.

To removably fasten the drill, you can use studs and dowels.

Not just a chainsaw!

drill bit

Let's add a little to our story: a gasoline engine can be taken not only from a chainsaw, but also from a lawn mower, trimmer, etc. You can use any rotary drive - for example, electric. The main thing is to carry out calculations for pairing with the gearbox, check whether the received power is enough for you for soil of one density or another.

Let's start attaching the drill

Of course, like the engine, the drill must be firmly fixed. But it's much easier to do. To attach it, you can take a pipe and connect the gearbox and drill with such a pipe, and then fix these connections. The big advantage of this design is that the drill can be replaced if necessary (for example, you may need to drill a hole of a different size).

It is imperative to ensure the reliability of the drill and check that the completed design will be safe for the driller.

You can try to make an “advanced” drill, which will have the ability not only for horizontal, but also for vertical drilling. To do this, you need another frame (made of a metal pipe) with a welded piece of vertical pipe.

More metal rings need to be welded to the body, which was made first. These rings must fit onto the vertical pipe without gaps. Now the entire updated structure is put on the drill pipe. You can start drilling.

There are two advantages to such an “advanced” drill: firstly, vertical drilling becomes possible, and secondly, drilling becomes much more convenient. However, there are also two disadvantages: firstly, it becomes heavier, and secondly, when drilling very deep, the drill pipe will interfere.

You can get rid of the second disadvantage if you make a drill guide pipe from parts that slide out from one another. Of course, these parts should not have a gap, but they should move within each other. Yes, and the structure will become even heavier.

You can also make it so that you can drill at a given angle. But the need for such drilling arises so rarely that it is better not to think specifically about this problem.

Shaft

Sometimes a flexible shaft can be used to transmit torque. But we must not forget that in order for such a shaft to be strong, capable of withstanding heavy loads, it needs to be in a protective shell.

And, of course, for the drill you can use not only the engine of a chainsaw, but also the engine of a lawn mower or trimmer. You just need to correctly calculate and select the gearbox. It is not necessary to use an overly powerful engine or a large-volume engine for a drill, as this will make the motor drill too heavy.