Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling holes in

[Deleted member 1779]

At 365Drills we are always improving and this year (2012) we turn our attention to the most iconic product the Bathroom Fitters Kit.

Later this year the Bathroom Fitters Kit will have a new look for the small cores. This is the prototype.

THE PROTOTYPE DOES NOT YET HAVE THE LARGER CORES ADDED - DONT WORRY THEY WILL COME !

I have decided to create two compartments on top of the yellow drill plate to hold the smaller 6mm and 8mm diamond cores.

Reasoning behind the change (which does cost money!) is that the four cores together tended to rattle quite a bit.
Also on some packs it was possible for the contents to drop out of place. Not elegent !

We are really busy talking to a big retailer in Germany and they demand perfection.

Knowing there was a chance that the rattling and the dropping would annoy them it seemed worth investing in new tooling.

Prototype finished (its in a resin block) we will turn this into an aluminum mould and create three identical sets. Once done we will be launching the new look bathroom fitters kit.

As a UK company trying to gain exports we have to listen hard to our European markets. Our broker is really making great progress and I hope to give you more news as the year goes on.

Obviously packaging changes do not affect the quality of the product. It still drills holes in tiles - and does it well !!

But as a forward looking company if we can iron out these little squeeks then it should improve our fighting chances against the ever growing competition.

One thing this forum is great at (you the contributors) is that you can often spot things or tell us things that we have missed.
So I have put that image up just in case I have made any totally obvious gaffs. You will be the first to point them out I am sure!

Yes the big cores are not on the prototype pack yet - but they will be. So please dont say that we missed them. Its not a gaff its machining.

But if there is anything glaringly obviously now is the time for me to change the resin mould. We and tinker with that all day or scrap it and start again.

Its cheaper for Barry to machine new resin moulds than to try to change an aluminium one.
The CNC will carve any shape required.

Small changes in software to create a virtual 3D image are cheaper than acutal production.


As I said fingers crossed this is right - but if it needs a tweek the month of May 2012 is the one to do it in ! !

 

[Rookery]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

To be honest, I'd like to see them in a small, closable case. Once you've opened the blister pack you cant store them properly.

 

[Alan M]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

To be honest, I'd like to see them in a small, closable case. Once you've opened the blister pack you cant store them properly.

+1. i would like a little box to store them.

 

[Muse2k8]

A wee box is a great idea but surely that should be a separate product? Otherwise the cost would go up for the BFK which we don't want

 

[tommyzooom]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

Personally, I never use the 6mm drills, as they are too fiddly to use and to de-core(is this a word?)
Anything requiring a 6mm plug, I drill an 8mm hole through the tile, then a 6mm masonary bit for the plug (less pressure on the tile too)

 

[Rookery]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

A wee box is a great idea but surely that should be a separate product? Otherwise the cost would go up for the BFK which we don't want

I know what your saying but I wouldnt have thought that a cheap plastic lidded box with cavities moulded in to take the various bits that much more expensive than a blister pack. Especially when you factor in the cost of a lost bit.

 

[Deleted member 1779]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

Those are great points !

Yes when we first went to retail with the product they couldnt believe that our diamond core system (the bathroom fitters kit) at £49.99 could give all the others a run for their money. Competitors like Armeg, Macrist, Rubi were all doing diamond core drills in sets for about £300 and presented them in a little suitcase.

We looked at the idea of it too..

It adds about £4.50 to the cost of the product in small volume runs of about 1000 sets.

But what we found was that retailers just didnt like the idea that they had these other sets of drills with the price tag of £300 and ours next to it at £50. Something to them didnt feel right.

So we had to start from scratch with our marketing. Our strategy then changed to take the middle ground. We dont do cheap drills at £2.50 each. We dont do expensive drills at £30 each.
Our market is the "middle ground" Value for money in the £30-£50 price camp for a set.

Once that was sorted the Clam shells have some advantages over the cases
1) Its much cheaper for us to produce at £0.26p each than a plastic case at £4.50 and therefore cheaper for you to buy the end product.
2) Our clamshells are tamper proof - We weld them shut - so that the contents cant be stolen from retailers!
3) All the contents are on open display in a merchants. With a case once the lid is shut the customer cant see what he is buying.

So that being our early marketing plan we have stuck with it. What we have noticed recently is that the others have also spotted the middle ground and are starting to supliment the cases with clamshells too. The top end of the market is saturated but not many installers can or want to shell out big ticket money so other mfrs have split their ranges up into single drills, put them onto Euroslot cards and are selling them that way.

But I DO LISTEN TO YOUR COMMENTS - And it might be time for 365Drills to go the other way too !! But going for the top. I think that now we are established as a trustworthy reliable supplier with a time proven essential product we should supliment our value for money range with a hard shell case.

-+-- Small case or PVC clamshell ? --+--

We have already got past data and mockups for doing a hard shell case. The great thing about the case is that we can do it really compact for you. Instead of you having to buy water bottles, arbours, pipes, pilot drills etc we can get everything under one roof. We add the water cooling sponge, the guide plates and maybe even the recently launched J-hook to a single case.
But expect it to be costing about £99 for the kit. Dont be relying on it being in our £30 to £50 buget. We will pack it with diamond cores and give you superb value but it has to work out for you and for us.

One thing I know from experience is that if I produce 1000 of these kits then they will have ONLY be sold online. We can never take them to retail.
Thats because:
1) The top end is flooded in retailers already with expensive kits. They are having a hard time shifting high value kits.
2) Because retail will offer us a rock bottom silly price. For them to sell it to you at £99 (£82.50 + VAT) they will pay us about £30 tops via a distribution network for the set.

This now brings me neatly onto tommyzooms concern. He doesnt like having to eject the core and finds the 6mm too fiddly. We agree TZ ! I hate the 6mm because its difficult to produce and of all the 37 sizes we prodcue the 6mm can be the most unreliable. Thats why we sell them as quad packs so that if one fails you get three backups.

With 6mm they clog up and we sell them as quad packs so that you have replacements.

In an effort to help resolve the clogging issue we launched the J-hook. This little device pops the core out using the slot cut into the core.

If we add the small cores to the case then we can include the J-hook as part of the kit - there is room for it in the lid next to the drill plates an the water cooling sponge.

Sticking with the small cores (6mm and 8mm) We are also about to launch the turbo cores. The advantage tubro cores have over hollow point cores is that they pound the tile at high speed into dust. There is no core to eject.

There are some downsides. These cores must be used at high speed. They generate a LOT of heat. We vaccum braze them so it adds to the cost. Its 4x more expensive to produce.
During installation at the end of its working life the drill begins to drift, or wander on the tile causing an "S" shape hole.

This product is still under trials (thanks to the 21 tilers on here who are road testing it for us) and when we launch it - it will be with accurate information on how to use it and its limitations.
We wont just send it out blank.

Finally: As a manufacturer we DO LISTEN to you our customer. It may be the products we retail do their jobs very well but have certain faults. Some we can change. Some we have to live with.
As you can see from above not all the marketing and resell decissions are actually about what the customer wants !! A lot depends on what the retailer demands... So we walk a fine balance.
But with the internet you can throw away the rule book. Hence that if we produce an exclusive kit in lets say the £80 to £99 price point fully loaded with goodies then it MAY sell like hot cakes on line but never ever make it to the big chains. I will certainly preparing my order book to create 1000 of these box kits because I believe they will eventually sell but you have also asked for them.

Thanks again!

 

[Rookery]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

A comprehensive reply and I understand your points. For me, I would prefer to see the plumbers kit in a small plastic case rather than the blister pack, even its £4.50 more. Have you considered dropping the 6mm cores?

 

[Deleted member 1779]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

Have you considered dropping the 6mm cores?

Oh yes many times! but the market DEMANDS them. so the only way we can compensate is to offer more cores. We did drop the 7mm (old fashioned 1/4 inch) and even that caused an outcry but my view is that there is hardly anything in them size wise so dropped the 7mm.

At 5.5mm these red plugs are popular with installers. We have the 6mm diamond core for them

At 7mm these brown plugs are best dealt with by the 8mm diamond core

In contrast plasplugs offered 5mm 5.5mm 6mm 6.5mm 7mm 7.5mm 8mm 8.5mm and so on. Thats 8 products where we have only two.

I think Tommyzoom got it right. He bought the 6mm, tried them and decided that 8mm are much more robust for porcelain. And then just swap to a normal drill when through the tile. In the end its the full time installer who makes up their mind. Maybe over time demand for 6mm will drop off but it wont be anytime soon.

Incidenltly the Bathroom Fitters Kit comes with TWO sizes the 6mm and 8mm so that at least there are plenty of backups.

 

[Plumbing Tiler]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

Just got a Bathroom Fitters Kit of your excellent drill bits and am very pleased with the results I have had so far, albeit on soft/cheap ceramics not really given them a proper workout yet but am very much looking forward to seeing how they perform in Porcelain, I have to agree that a storage box of some description would definitely be a bonus even if it adds a fiver to the price of the kit, which lets face it seems to be genuinely good value, I do have one ever so small little gripe though, a 16mm bit for 15mm pipe is a bit optimistic, I had a tile today that had a hot pipe, cold pipe and a waste pipe going through it and because the hot and cold weren't quite square (existing pipework) where they came out of the boxing it was a real problem to get right, eventually I had to do a larger (30mm) hole for one of the pipes, not a problem as it was behind a washbasin pedestal but still annoyed me as it wasn't quite right, how about upping the 16mm to say 18mm instead?

 

[Muse2k8]

I have to agree I never use a 16mm for 15mm pipe it's just a tad too small. Always use an 18 or 19mm to allow for expansion etc.

 

[Deleted member 1779]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

One thing you can do with the 16mm is to open up a hole to 18mm

Drill out the initial 16mm first

This is a 15mm pipe coming through a 16mm hole.

You can then grind out the sides of the 16mm hole (each diamond core is fitted with side grinders) to open out the hole to required dimention.

We do supply the 18mm core but feedback from some had been they left the hole too gappy on jobs.

Cant fit it into the main kit but DEFINATLEY will put it into the case when we launch it.

Thanks for the feedback. Maybe we should do an offer on the 18mm soon ?

Note this is the result of an 18mm diamond core for a 15mm pipe coming through.
You can see capping off with cover plates is essential if this size is used.

This is the result using 16mm core to bring through 15mm pipework.
The gap is sealed with Silicon (not grout)

But appreciate accuracy is critical as there is not much room for error.

This is a shot of a waste pipe (32mm) coming through a 40mm hole
And a 15mm pipe coming through a 16mm hole.

So yes agree that its very tight and there is room to offer the 18mm in the new box we will prepare.

Watch this space in 2012 for the £99 set which will include a seletion box of goodies.

 

[Plumbing Tiler]

Re: Always improving: 365-Drills diamond core tile drill bits tips for drilling hole

Thanks for the reply Richard, I will definitely be looking at this £99 set with interest when it is released, I did think of grinding the sides if the hole but as it was the first time I had used your cutters I didn't want to risk damaging it and therefore render it useless as a test of its ability, but now I know its ok I will bear that in mind if the situation crops up again, got to say fair play for taking the time to listen and respond, in this day and age it is very rare to get even basic levels of customer service let alone any actual interest in what the customer has to say

 

[Muse2k8]

Look forward to it

 

[Olz]

Maybe the case could be done as a stand alone product sold empty.

I wouldn't want a case every time I replaced a set of cores as the case will presumably put last them by a long way.

Like wise people who buy a set of cores for a one off job to use then chuck probably don't want a case either.

People who use regularly and would make use of a case could then buy it seperatley on an ad hoc basis and replace it when required.


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