Rebar Cutting Bits from Diablo

Over the years I’ve drilled concrete to install wedge anchors, Titens or threaded rod & epoxy. I swear half the time I hit rebar. Standard concrete drilling rotary hammer bits aren’t designed to cut rebar. That meant I had to buy separate bits, but they ONLY worked for rebar. As soon as I hit concrete, it was start to chip away at the teeth.

Use this bit only in drilling mode not hammer drill mode or it’ll break the teeth.

Sometimes we can just drill a new hole, but when the engineer calls for 18+” deep holes for a hold down, it has to go exactly where he or she wants it. I was working on one remodel back in 2012 where the entire front of the building was glass. The engineer was squeezing every inch out of the shear wall for those hold downs and literally 1” mattered for his calculations.

I partnered with Diablo (they sponsored the YouTube video) to try out and demonstrate their new rotary hammer bit. It is designed to drill concrete AND rebar. It has a 4 cutter head and can withstand temperatures more than double my standard bits. The hammering and heat generated drilling steel will quickly kill bits, but not this one. I drilled a series of holes though concrete and concrete +rebar and while the bit got very hot, it did its job.

4 cutter full carbide head

Make sure that when you drill through rebar you don’t push on the roto-hammer but just let the tool do the work. I had a guy kill a roto-hammer of ours because he was putting all his weight on it. Just let the tool and bit do what they do. I’ll be replacing all out roto-hammer bits with these.

non rebar cutting on the left, Diablo on the right. Notice the blueish tint from the heat.