Drill bits - what to buy and how to sharpen?

[DocsMachine]

Good. Grizzly is an importer. Most of their machinery is pretty good (the Taiwanese-made is better than the Chinese made) but all their tooling is only mediocre to decent. It's not bad, but for the cost, I tend to recommend buying just a handful of the sizes you need- like 3/16", 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", and so on. Do you really need a 13/64ths?

I'm a machinist, and even I find I use only perhaps as many as a dozen sizes regularly, another three or four very infrequently (once or twice a year, tops) and the rest sit around gathering dust because they're either too big or too small.

Especially if you have a good supplier in town, and not too far away. I'm lucky in that there's an industrial supplier not three miles away, with a good selection of drills, including 6" and 12" in a few sizes. When I need a new drill in a size I don't have, I just run up and buy two or three at sometimes less than $2 each.

That way I have fewer oddball sizes just sitting round not being used.

Doc.

[C9]

I've had very good luck with USA made 5% Cobalt drills.

My Drill Doctor does good in sharpening, but once the drills get over 5/8" or so I sharpen them by hand on a fine grit carborundum wheel.
Something more exotic in the grinding wheel dept. would be nice, but the grinder is used for other things.

I've been using a Titanium Nitride 1/4" drill to make pilot holes with my lathe.
After center drilling of course.
It's hanging in there pretty good, drilled a lot of aluminum with it, some mild steel both CR and HR as well as some stainless.
The proper cutting oils were used, but from what I've read lately WD40 is the 'hot setup' for drilling/machining aluminum.

I ran some comparison tests a few years back.
HSS (High Speed Steel) against Titanium Nitride and Zirconium Nitride.
Quite a few holes about 1/8" in mild steel.
The Tn and Zn drills did a little better than HSS in my opinion.
(Zn's are available at Sears.)

Been having good luck with Vermont drills, taps & dies from Orchard Supply as well.
I believe Home Depot also carries them.

Latest foray into the drill dept. is a small drill index of Pilot Point Tip drills by DeWalt.
These things are really slick to use on sheet metal.
Especially in a situation where it's difficult to access the sheet metal proper cuz you're drilling through previously drilled 3/16" mild steel with a 5/16" hole to reach the sheet metal.
To that end - and mainly cuz my whole shop was packed up for the move and no drills were readily available - I bought the DeWalts on the off chance they would work well in sheet metal.
They worked great, cut right through the sheet metal in about a tenth the time - or less - that it would have taken using a regular drill in a non-piloted hole.
Drilling wood is really easy with these drills and for a while after moving in, they were the only drills available - couldn't find the other drill indexes.

Only disadvantage I see with the DeWalt pilot tips is they look to be difficult to sharpen due to the pilot drill tip.
So I save em for special occasions.

Not sure what their metallurgical makeup is, they appear to be Tn coated.

Price was about $26. for 16 drills in a nice plastic index.
You get two 1/16", after that they go to 7/32 by 64ths, then you get 1/4, 5/16, 3/8 and 1/2"
(Sizes under 1/8 do not have the pilot tip.)

Another nice feature about these is the three flats ground on the shank of the 3/16" & up drills.
Makes it very nice for hand held drill motors.

I hope they sell these individually, I'd hate to buy another whole set if only one drill was bad.

[kb426]

I'm doing this a little differently than some of you. I use Enco and buy their mid priced bits. I buy several of each size that I use alot of. When I ruin them, I pitch 'em and grab another. Sometimes i get some that aren't very good but I've spent way more on Clevelands and Hansons and didn't get anymore life out of them. It also depends on whether I'm working on alum., tool steel, or 4130. I also believe in moderate speeds.

[rooster]

While on the subject of drill bits!!!!!!!! I thought this would be the right place to ask ,what do you do to read them better, besides put your glass's on. Mine are scuffed up! Some kinda of label for them out their?

[kb426]

Wish I could help. I use my dial calipers. That and the index is marked.

[Dave]

The end result should look like two even cutting edges with a small straight line seperating the cutting edges...It's fairly hard to do small bits and as I get older the minimum size gets larger....I think in a couple of years I'll be sharpening 1/4" and above only [/quote]
Tell me about.. I learned when I was about 15 working in my dads tool shop and now that I have glasses oh ya with bifocals......... its hard to do. I do it on the bench grinder and have never used any of them fancy thingys.
There are a lot of different tricks you can do too . I work on drilling machines all day and we have 50 some screw machines. Some times you actually dull em up......... specially for drilling brass.
Dave

[C9]

While on the subject of drill bits!!!!!!!! I thought this would be the right place to ask ,what do you do to read them better, besides put your glass's on. Mine are scuffed up! Some kinda of label for them out their?

KB426's suggestion is a good one.
Dial calipers have come down quite a bit in price.
You might look into a plastic dial caliper - I believe these measure to .01, but that's close enough.
The price is pretty low in most cases for the plastic ones.

Measure on a clean part of the shank.
The flutes - once turned to their largest OD for the calipers - will measure .001 - .002 undersize depending on how big the drill is.

[Crosley.In.AZ]

While on the subject of drill bits!!!!!!!! I thought this would be the right place to ask ,what do you do to read them better, besides put your glass's on. Mine are scuffed up! Some kinda of label for them out their?

as mentioned .... get the 'verns' (caliper) out.  


I use drills from .047 to .250 daily.  I use my verns to measure them when needed.

Also ,  I use a Craftsman ( Sears)  professional air powered drill.  VERY controlable for speed with a .047 drill or a .250 drill.

[Skip]

About all my bits are dull to. I got this tool at a swap meet but have never used it, its made by Craftsman , I need the right stone to attch to my bench grinder before I can try it out.

I've had one of these for years but I never use it.  It's STILL bolted to the bench alongside my bench grinder.

Why don't I use it? .........because it sucks.

[rooster]

About all my bits are dull to. I got this tool at a swap meet but have never used it, its made by Craftsman , I need the right stone to attch to my bench grinder before I can try it out.

I've had one of these for years but I never use it.  It's STILL bolted to the bench alongside my bench grinder.

Why don't I use it? .........because it sucks.

Whats the scoop Skip! Is it a waste of time?

[Skip]

About all my bits are dull to. I got this tool at a swap meet but have never used it, its made by Craftsman , I need the right stone to attch to my bench grinder before I can try it out.

I've had one of these for years but I never use it.  It's STILL bolted to the bench alongside my bench grinder.

Why don't I use it? .........because it sucks.

Whats the scoop Skip! Is it a waste of time?

Let's put it this way.  It is far from a precision sharpening device.  You, also, need a very fine wheel to do a decent job.

[rooster]

Well I only got 3 dollars in the tool and it is like new and in its box w/instructions! Also have the a60 stone I hope thats fine enough, dont know much about sharpening. I dont think I can get the bits any duller, or maybe I can, Ill try one way or the other.

[rooster]

I have been using the drill doctor this week and having good results! The bits I have are of all different kinds, some usa, some marked HS, alot China, a couple JAP! I bought a set of the cheap China bits at a swap meet afew years ago , I didnt use alot of them weriod sizes but run them threw the drill doctor anyway. I couldent belive how crapie thay came sharpened right from the factoy, this became apparent when grinding in the drill doctor,some very un-even. Now they cut fairly well, I dont expect much though!

I did probely did 150 bits this week going threw the box I have , here are afew I dont know much about, I think they are for wood. Any body know?

[Darkman]

IMHO from left to right 1-4 appear to be wood working router bits, 5 Can't tell actually on my computer it looks like a worn out tap, 6 Large wood working router bit used with HD routers in router tables also maybe used in a shaper again wood working, 7-9 appears to be a knurler of some kind, 10 countersink probably for wood, 11 Not a clue but it looks to leave a flat bottom, 12 I have one of these and don't know either, 13 & 14 wood bits for a brace and bit which I believe is a hand powered drill for woodworking, 15 On my monitor it just looks like a regular bit but the shank is blurry so I'm assuming it is maybe like a tap base which means I have no clue.

[Dave]

Been doing it by hand forever. Started as a tool maker when i was about 14.
9/11 ill be 55. Gets harder the older you get (eyesight thing) but i still do em by hand . no gagets here just a bench grinder...
Dave.