👉 Okay, let’s tackle this wonderfully weird little practice: "anvil drilling." Frankly, just saying the whole thing out loud has a certain… dramatic ring to it.
Basically, anvil drilling is exactly what it sounds like! Historically, and still sometimes in very specific artisan circles, you essentially hammer a ridiculously pointy, almost offensively sharp drill bit into a piece of solid steel – traditionally an anvil— under tremendous downward pressure, whilst simultaneously spinning the bit at ridiculous speed with another mallet and… frankly, just a whole lot of force. Now, before you think I've lost my marbles (and honestly, that wouldn't be entirely unwelcome), let’s unpack why it was done! Early drill bits were awful. They snapped easily, were blunt, and generally weren’t up to the task. Anvil-drilling was a brutal, exhausting, absolutely sweaty, last-ditch attempt to toughen the point of that drill bit – essentially, to make it as unyielding as possible by repeatedly stressing its weakest point. Think of it as blacksmithing for your drills! You really need a very experienced hand and a good understanding of metallurgy—because you're basically trying to force-fracture the steel into a perfectly pointy shape. It’s a barbaric, slightly insane, and now almost entirely obsolete process. You absolutely cannot do this without proper safety equipment and a very sturdy anvil, unless you fancy an awfully long and painful day. Here
