Re:Better Safe Cracking through Chemistry (Score 2, Informative)

Dude you would need a hell of a drill to punch a 1\8" hole through an ibeam without a pilot hole. Milwaukee makes one, it's basically a portable drill press with a badass electromagnet in the base of it. It costs about as much as a pretty good used car. Failing that, you go buy a complete drill index -- it's a set of drills that start a little bigger around than wire and get bigger in 1/64" increments -- and you start with a very tiny one and drill a pilot hole. Use a sharp punch and a hammer to make a little dimple to start the drill. Then you work your way up through the index to the size hole you want. And, use oil. A couple drops at a time of light machine oil. Also low speed, not high. The speed and feed rate might be found in a manual but it's really a matter of feel. It's slower than you think.

To the poster below who is worried about the integrity of a building after a hole is drilled through a beam, calm down. It's a building not a jet fighter. You'd have to spend your life on the end of a drill to make enough holes to undermine the redundancy in any code-compliant building.