Thread: Hand Sharpening Drill Bits

Go for it Graham, I've been hand sharpening drills for 40 years with reasonably consistent results, it's just a matter of the learning basics and then practice, practice, practice.

Hi Graeme,

Sign me up for a drill sharpening class.

I do ok (sometimes) on larger drill bits, but mixed to hopeless on the smaller ones.

Regards
Ray

yes please sir

Hey Grahame,

Please sign me up, I'm sick of buying new drill every other day, I have a box of ' Practice Bits ' Waiting to go

HazzaB

I'm up for it.
David

Hi Grahame,
A bit like the others, I have my good days at Sharpening those bits, but the small one are really awkward.
Are going to make a Video / U Tube thing, or can you explain HOW YOU DO IT.
Anything you do or tell us wood be an improvement on what I do, anyway.
Strange as it seems, those drills do cut most of the time, & instead of a point? I have this short line, & they still work, it's got me ?

I'd be interested in some refresher training Grahame.

I was tought to sharpen drill bits back in 1981 when I was a 1st year apprentice, by Max Soul, he was one of the apprentice trainers where I worked.

With the throwaway culture in many workplaces thesedays it seems to be a dying art.

I have to put in my bit here. If you are interested in doing it by hand that is great, go for it. I used to be able to do it but now as age sets in (51) and the eyes are finally going it gets more difficult. I don't enjoy sharpening drill bits or chainsaws, so it is just a chore. In my case I just want the drill bit sharpened so I can use it.

A good, properly setup sharpener will give constant results, angles lengths etc with little skill. The skill is in setting up. I use the type of jig which pivots the drill against the side of a grinding wheel or disk. When I first got it I could not get good results. After a lot of thought, observation and testing of angles using CAD I managed to get good results.

This is the type I use.
Attachment 174895

The instructions provided were wrong and misleading. The other thing I have recently found out and have not yet implemented is that they always instruct the user to use the wrong part of the grinding wheel.

I read this on a web site and a light bulb (Compact flouro of course) lit up above my head. You are told to align the drill with the centre front of the wheel which produces grinding marks along the cutting edge of the drill. All other methods of sharpening align the marks across the edge. Marks along the edge can weaken the edge causing chipping.

The simple answer is align the drill to top centre of the wheel. I made a stand for my grinder to save bench space and then fitted a mount for the sharpener to the side of the stand, complete with adjustments in/out towards axis and up down. I need to change this to align drill with top centre and will rebuild it hopefully better and easier to operate.

Another thing I should mention is that I mounted the sharpener on to a slide that I made which is far more stable and accurate than sliding the base along the bench as per directions. This slide has a bolt to move in/out towards wheel for original setting of position of drill.

An issue that some people mention is in regards to grinding against the side of the wheel. The preasure used for grinding drills is not going to damage a grinding wheel in good condition. If this does bother you use a sanding disk or similar.

If anyone is interested I can supply photos etc to make it clearer and maybe even a drill sharpening class for non hand sharpening.

Dean

I had a short tempered Dutch boilermaker show me how to sharpen large bits forty years ago. Not having bothered to sharpen a bit since has me at the bottom of the class. I'm keen to see a tutorial for both freehand and jigged sharpening. So fire away Grahame and Dean.

BT

The problem with hand sharpening a drill bit is that while it's not that difficult, as Grahame says, to get the two edges sharp, it's almost impossible to get them perfectly symmetrical. That's not just my opinion, that's a proven fact when commercial firms have compared the results. Now whether this really matters depends a lot on what you're intending to do with the drill bits you've just sharpened. If you use them in soft materials like wood then knock yourself out, because you won't notice any difference. However if you're after more precise results, like relatively round holes, or you drill deep holes in harder material then be more cautious because the holes created by a drill that's ground asymmetrically will be neither round nor straight.

Personally I rarely find a need to ream holes, and don't have a full set of metric reamers anyway, simply buying them as I need the different sizes. However I do regularly have a need for quite straight and round holes. For that reason I machine sharpen my drill bits. However other members may be in a completely different situation, and hand sharpening may be perfectly adequate. Just be aware of the caveats involved with doing so. It's certainly a good skill to acquire, so I'm not trying to rain on Grahame's parade in any way, just pointing out the limitations.

Pete

Hi Bloke

I am in too. have one of them Drill Doc thingo's, have not be happy with it, would like to learn the hand technique.

DD

Looks like we are both up for drill sharpening class. I will get to it but unfortunately I am going to have to ask for patience as my wonderful wife is due to have surgery in Adelaide on Wednesday for breast cancer. This is her second time but on different sides.

The doctors are quietly hopeful that due to very early discovery it will be relatively straight forward.

I have a couple of weeks off and may be able to get started in the second week.

Dean

Go Go Go, I need to know.... While I wait I'm going to calculate how much money I will save on buying new bits. How many old ones can I find to sharpen? I had a mate try to drill stainless. I told him to go very very slow... He went full speed, Started with 1/8 and ruined every NEW bit up to 1/2 inch. Was not impressed as they were MY bits.

I personally have little problem drilling stainless steel. I agree it wears drills bits faster but the biggest problem I think is the hardness and quality of the bits. Using cheapies is a total waste of time. I use a drill press. An electric hand drill is not suitable for SS. I use the same speeds as with steel. After reading your post I did a search and found you were right. About 30% of the speed used for steel. Must try that some time. Also 135 to 140 deg angle for common SS (304, 316). I don't change angles tho.

With the sharpener I use you can sharpen from 1/8in to 3/4in. I also use a spray commonly called RTD spray, for drilling. This stands for ream, tap and drill. It makes drilling noticably easier and faster and reduces wear on both the cutting edges and more importantly the flute edges which determine diameter.

Dean