Making Pepper Grinders ..Using Colt Maxi Cut

[stevew]

Good Evening,
Have been having a go at making the Salt and Pepper Mills,the forstner bits from Torqueta are not very good at chewing aussie hardwood.
I have heard good reports about the Colt Maxi Cut from Germany ,,,,which are apparently supreme at chewing out Aussie hardwoods.
Has anyone tried these forstner bits ,and if so can you get them in Aus,,,the Carbatec prices seem very dear.
Is there a USA site that is competitive with cheap freight.
Merry Christmas to all wood shaving makers.
Cheers.
Steve

[DJ’s Timber]

Colt Maxicuts are great, got mine from overseas.

Here is a review (http://www.woodworkforums.com/f171/colt-maxicut-forstner-bits-112285/) I did on mine

[jefferson]

I must have missed your original post, DJ.

I'll be down (minus the cranky dogs) as soon as you invite me. This hole boring for grinders takes all the fun out of it!

[Mr Brush]

Yup - fantastic forstner bits, but I got all mine from Lee Valley.

You can order the sets of these from Infinity Tools (USA)

Carbide Router Bits | Router Bit Sets | Shaper Cutters | Saw Blades | Planer Knives | Jointer Knives | Infinity Cutting Tools (http://www.infinitytools.com/searchprods.asp)

They will ship these to Australia, and at current exchange rates the prices are attractive. Their brad point drills are supposed to be very good too - wish I'd seen these before I bought a set of CMT.....:(

[brendan stemp]

Whilst I've never used the bit you speak of and after going down the road of HSS forstner bits hoping to get more life out of them I have now opted for cheaper forstner bits. Why? Because I can easily sharpen them. I make a lot of grinders using a lot of different Aussie hardwoods and eventually the bit will need sharpening which is something I can easily do with a file and a vice. With HSS or TC bits the only option for sharpening was a saw doctor.

[Mr Brush]

Ease of sharpening is one of the main benefits of the Colt forstner bits. They have a unique cutter profile that can easily be sharpened using a small hone.

There might be a close up of the cutter profile somewhere on their webpage.

After using (and sharpening) these bits, I'd never buy anything else again.