Ok i will start from the begining. A customer brought a ball in to have the thumb plugged. It was plugged once before. I drilled about a 1/4 into the old plugging and then proceded to drill the thumb out so the plugging would all be one color. everything went fine and plugging went well with a very good color match. Then when the ball was to be drilled i was drilling into the plug and got about 2 1/2 inches down and then it was impossible to go any farther, the drill didn't seem to be able to get past that mark. The drill started to make a loud rattle noise inside the hole. at first when i encountered some strain i thought possible it was a fired cermanic core. but i stopped and took the drill back out and my drill bit was chipped! I couldn't believe it, i unscrewed the bit from the press and exmained it and it was chipped badly! I unclamped the ball from the jig, and looked at the bottom of the thumb hole, and it looked like a small piece of metal was at the bottom, in the older plugging. we tested it with a small magnet and it was in fact metal.

The ball that caused this damage i think is this ball:
http://www.bowlingballreviews.com/ball.asp?ballid=182

the drill press/mill is an innovative RX-71 if i remember the model number correctly. they are Carbide bits and the press and the bits are only 6 months old. It's not a high volume shop and maybe the bit only has 15 to 20 uses. it s a 29/32 drill bit.

I contacted our distributor shortly after it happened to get pricing info on a new drill bit and it will cost 60$.

After the drill bit was damaged i was a bit angry but mostly shocked and amazed at how this could have happened.

The owner of the ball came in later last night and said he didn't know where the ball was originally plugged and it came from his father and his father got it from a friend of a friend.

Has anyone else ever had a drill bit break on them? Or had a ball with metal inside been presented to them?

I was about to call up innovative to see if they could help do anything, because someone suggested it could have been a manufacturing flaw in the bit, but i strongly doubt that. but anyways the owner of the bowling center is ordered a new drill bit and didn't even give it a second thought.

Any takes on this situation?
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I am Canadian Dude!

anyone else have this happen?
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I am Canadian Dude!

So it is metal, in the ball and not in the plugging.Ok well that explains a couple of things. we enlarged the hole with a 1 3/8th drill bit to see if it was part of the older plugging, and it seemed ring in the core material. This ball is honestly before my time. I was going past 2 1/2 because normally i go 2 3/4 deep for most thumb holes to make sure it's deep enough for even the longest thumbs.

The replacement bit came in today and it the same as the one it replaced so life will carry on. This was just a surprise when all this happened.
thanks for sharing the experience
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I am Canadian Dude!