The whole bunch was giddy.
"Something remarkable is happening," said Rushford Hypersonic office manager Barb Schramm, "and Dan(Fox) would like you to come up right away.
I went to Hypersonic and a group had gathered to watch little holes being drilled in metal.
But not just any metal-half-inch thick stainless steel. Not just any drill bit but a nanoparticle-coated drill tip.
They were past 150 holes and celebrating each additional because they started with a moderate-to-cheap drill bit out of the box and got six holes when it overheated and rolled the cutting edge back, useless. Then with a bit out of the same package but nanocoated-they were past 150 holes and still going.
STORY RESET: Rushford Hypersonic is a private local company started by Dan Fox and investors as a spin-off of Rushford Institute of Nanotechnology.
With exclusive use of a University of Minnesota patent, its goal is to use hypersonic plasma particle deposition to improve wear surfaces.
In a vacuum chamber ultra-small carbon nanoparticles are slammed into a target, such as the tip of drill bit, at seven or eight times the speed of sound and instead of bouncing off, the bond created is a hard, smooth finish, reducing wear and friction,.
DOES IT WORK? That's what the fun was about Thursday.
A conventional quarter-inch drill bit made six holes in the stainless and gave up.
A companion but HPPD treated bit made 238 holes and when Brent Morcomb and Greg Lucas ran out of half-inch material and they went to one-inch and got seven holes before the bit shattered.
This was a deliberate stress test because normal metal drilling is done with a tiny drizzle of oil lubricating the cutting edge, cooling the bit and aiding the evacuation of shavings. This one was done dry, "The worst thing you can do," said Fox.
A rough guess at the moment is that the HPPD bit could last 30 or more times longer than a conventional bit. "Can you imagine what somebody would save with one of these," said Lucas who along with Morcomb are WSU materials engineering students working at Hypersonic.
As observers watched hole after hole, the bit kept working with clean shavings, and though hot, was not glowing. "Less coefficient of friction," announced Fox.
"Stainless is really hard," said Lucas, "and dry-it's awful to do. It's not the way I thought I'd finish my day but I wouldn't have it any other way. The worst thing you could do to this bit is lose it."
"We need a whole new security system," joked Charles Fox, Dan's son who is into a career in economics but admiring the engineering.
"Think about this," said Dan Fox. "I'm amazed, this is awesome."
"I've never seen Dan like this," said Schramm, "I think he would jump up and down if he could."
