Trusted by leading aerospace and automotive manufacturers to cut costs and improve yield through process-optimised drilling.
Exactaform CFRP drills are engineered around your actual material and combinations of materials to create stack geometry to control thrust, protect fibres, and deliver repeatable hole quality.
As there’s no such thing as a truly “standard” composite drill and we treat CFRP as a new material every time we work with it.
That’s why the majority of our CFRP drills are application-led and designed for your process. However when speed matters, we also carry a range of off-the-shelf solutions based on proven geometries for common CFRP materials so you can move quickly without compromising on performance. When machining carbon fibre reinforced plastic and carbon fibre reinforced polymer stacks, achieving consistent hole quality relies on controlling cutting forces, optimising cutting speed, and selecting the right drilling mechanisms for your application.
Exactaform offers advanced PCD drills, solid carbide CFRP drills, and carbide options designed to minimise tool wear and extend tool life when working with highly abrasive carbon fibre reinforced materials. Our engineers optimise drill bit geometry, fiber cutting angles, and groove geometries to improve chip removal, reduce cutting temperatures, and prevent surface damage or premature edge swelling. By matching the drill to your composite configuration, we deliver stable processes that improve consistency and reduce rework.
Aerospace Sales Manager Martin Burns discusses the challenges of machining CFRP, how Exactaform partners with leading aerospace manufacturers, and where the industry is heading next.
If we determine that your application requires a specialised CFRP drill, our process is built around understanding how your material behaves, how the stack layers interact, and what your tolerance and lifecycle targets are. From there, we engineer the drill bit geometry, drill point length, and fiber cutting angle to optimise performance for your exact laminate configuration.
Our advanced PCD drills, solid carbide CFRP drills, and multifaceted drills are designed to minimise tool wear, reduce cutting forces, and improve chip removal across varying fiber orientations. We also integrate Diamond Like Carbon coatings to enhance abrasion resistance and deliver longer tool life while preventing burr formation, surface damage, and delamination factors. This ensures superior hole quality across carbon fibre reinforced materials, hybrid stacks, and demanding applications involving titanium and stainless steel.
Send us your drawing and laminate/stack details, including hole sizes, tolerances, fibre orientations, resin systems, and stack order if metals are involved. The more complete the picture, the faster we can design the right tool.
Our design team will review your application and propose an optimised drill geometry, complete with recommended baseline parameters (speed, feed, coolant strategy). At this stage, you’ll see how the tool design directly addresses challenges like delamination, ovality, or burrs.
We supply a pilot batch of drills for trials. Our applications engineers work alongside your team during prove-out - capturing thrust, hole quality, and life data. Adjustments are fine-tuned until we hit capability (Cp/Cpk) and sign-off requirements.
Once proven, we lock the specification. This ensures every tool you receive matches the validated geometry and process. Metric and imperial sizes are available to align with your drawings and fixtures.
Finally, we establish a supply plan that fits your production rhythm - whether that’s kanban, consignment, or scheduled shipments. As volumes ramp, you can rely on consistent performance, retip/regrind support, and rapid replacements to keep your lines running.
A portfolio developed specifically for aerospace machining. These drills are built to handle the demands of CFRP laminates, aluminium skins, and titanium stack-ups found across modern aircraft structures.
Our off-the-shelf range includes proven PCD drills, solid carbide CFRP drills, and optimised geometries designed to deliver exceptional hole quality without long development lead times. These tools are engineered to balance cutting speed, chip removal, and feed strategies to extend tool life and reduce tool wear in even the most abrasive carbon fibre reinforced polymer structures.
By refining drill entry angles, groove geometries, and fibre fracture mode control, we minimise the risks of edge swelling, heat-affected zones, and delamination extension while achieving superior finishes across composite stacks. Ideal for trials, spares, or fast production turnaround, these tools give you reliable performance while maintaining Exactaform’s high standards for process efficiency.