Thread: On Sharpening Twist Drills

Originally Posted by simonl

While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too with sound to peoples ears. You will never when an argument with valve amp audiophiles that mosfets (or whatever) are better because they like valves!

I would almost go out on a limb and say that of these people, 1% may be able to spot the sound difference while the other 99% are just hanging onto the past, similar to what we do when we admire fine old machine tools.

Persoanlly I can't tell the difference.

Enjoying the thread on drilling holes in timber though!

You beat me on that one Simon.

I am a member of an Audio Forum based in the US. There are people on that forum that claim they can pick the difference, not just between different speaker cables, which is an argument that has been ongoing for years, but that they can pick the difference when using different extension cords to connect the audio system to power. You do have to remember that they are using 110v so that would make a difference compared to our power supply effects. I am not joking about this.

Dean

Originally Posted by Pete F

So, how many 1.3 mm augers have you come across?

As I mentioned, there were other drill designs before the modern twist drill, and some of them are much more accurate, though rarely seen these days, however claims were being made that are difficult to justify on a number of fronts. Ewan mentioned wood movement (and I fully agree), I mentioned that if they're claiming that accuracy from twist drills, they didn't exist before 1860ish, at best. No disrespect to the OP, just pointing out where things don't add up.

Not quite sure exactly what you are saying.. it's a bit disjointed.

The article linked to by Rob was about a guy who worked making tooling for making pianos... I've no doubt he did work for some company drilling holes in wood for pianos, and he believes the accuracy he claims, it's a bit of a stretch to then claim that some unknown piano maker doesn't know about wood movement.. I'd prefer to think it's more likely he was just exaggerating the accuracy for the purposes of impressing his fan club. A mix of myth and anecdote intended to highlight the importance of accurately ground twist drills in a production environment. No surprise there.

Storm in a teacup.

Ray

Originally Posted by Oldneweng

You beat me on that one Simon.

I am a member of an Audio Forum based in the US. There are people on that forum that claim they can pick the difference, not just between different speaker cables, which is an argument that has been ongoing for years, but that they can pick the difference when using different extension cords to connect the audio system to power. You do have to remember that they are using 110v so that would make a difference compared to our power supply effects. I am not joking about this.

Dean

Last time I looked (which is quite a few years ago I must admit), they used to insist on oxygen free copper in their cable, and could tell the difference depending on which way round the speaker wire was connected (what end was connected to the amplifier)
In the old days, the audiophiles used to love listening to radio 3 on the BBC (classical music). Especially live concerts, because they had the impression there was no processing involved, and so this was the purest source they could have. I used to work in the BBC and when CD's first came along, the audiophiles used to phone in complaining that the CD's were giving them headaches and they could hear all the quantisation noise, and could we stop using them. What they didn't know was that for the last year before CD's, we had been distributing radio 3 over NICAM, which was a lossy system, unlike CD's which are lossless. No-one complained about NICAM because they never knew it was there. Still, what can we say, if you read this forum we mostly seem to buy machines so we can make/repair machines. There's nowt stranger than folks, as they say.

Originally Posted by RayG

Not quite sure exactly what you are saying.. it's a bit disjointed.

"any moving part on an action ran on pins 0.0505" in diameter, a standard reached in the late 18th century but unfortunately a size no drills exist for. In the early days of the 20th century they made drills by filings tool steel wire down, hammering and filing into a spade bit then hardening. In my day we bought HSS drill blanks in exact size then hand ground these into spade drills"

Sorry my post was "disjointed" Ray. I've highlighted the appropriate section I was referring to. 0.0505" is roughly 1.3 mm (1.2827 mm in fact for those paid-up members of the pedantic club). Again, there were other types of drills available prior to the invention of twist drills, some of which were alluded to in John Stevenson's posts. However I'd be surprised if I were to learn "micro-augers" featured amongst them.

I have enormous respect for John Stevenson, have learnt a lot through his writings, and have "spoken" with him many times via email, so I'm reluctant to doubt what he claims. However by the same token I have every reason to doubt the accuracy being claimed, in addition to why there would be any good reason to aim for that degree of accuracy in the first place. While the wood may well be of a specific moisture level while being worked, as soon as it leaves the workshop that will change, therefore so will the hole size. Furthermore, if accuracy of that order was indeed demanded, why spend hours (as claimed) setting up machines to drill holes that accurately, when they could be reamed to precisely that size as a second op. The whole story makes no sense, at least as it appears, on a number of grounds.

However I don't think Rob's intention was to dispute the integrity of the posters, and the thread was an interesting one in regard those drill sharpening jigs. I have one and never was happy with it. I found it clumsy to set up, not at all accurate, and painfully slow. Good luck to the gentleman who modified it to supposedly perform better. Having said that, I prefer modified drill points myself, as suggested by JS, as they drill a lot more accurately and with less pressure. If anyone is interested I'd suggest looking up multi-faceted drill sharpening; essentially just sharpening them as you would an end mill. Reading through the whole thread it was a shame to see it disintegrate to the point where the original poster decided to quite the whole forum in frustration. But then again, I can empathise with him!

Originally Posted by sossity

Last time I looked (which is quite a few years ago I must admit), they used to insist on oxygen free copper in their cable, and could tell the difference depending on which way round the speaker wire was connected (what end was connected to the amplifier)
In the old days, the audiophiles used to love listening to radio 3 on the BBC (classical music). Especially live concerts, because they had the impression there was no processing involved, and so this was the purest source they could have. I used to work in the BBC and when CD's first came along, the audiophiles used to phone in complaining that the CD's were giving them headaches and they could hear all the quantisation noise, and could we stop using them. What they didn't know was that for the last year before CD's, we had been distributing radio 3 over NICAM, which was a lossy system, unlike CD's which are lossless. No-one complained about NICAM because they never knew it was there. Still, what can we say, if you read this forum we mostly seem to buy machines so we can make/repair machines. There's nowt stranger than folks, as they say.

Which end is connected? That is a new one. I try to use Oxygen Free Copper (OFC), but I believe this is more related to longevity than sound (corrosion free). I have a pretty good audio system, but I don't think I can pick the difference with this stuff. I have an audio system to enjoy it, not to pick holes in it.

I would like to see the results of a test set up to prove/disprove this sensitivity to sound. Personally, I think that if you have hearing that sensitive, you are unlikely to enjoy the music as you will always be picking fault.

Dean

Its dead easy to pick the difference between a CD on a transistor system and a record over a valve system. Just listen for the noise between tracks.....(and sometimes during the tracks)
Some music, for me particularly jazz, just sounds better off a record, but lets face it, i don't really get the time to sit down and just listen to music any more! Once it becomes a background sound i couldn't care less what its played from.

Ew

Originally Posted by Ueee

Its dead easy to pick the difference between a CD on a transistor system and a record over a valve system. Just listen for the noise between tracks.....(and sometimes during the tracks)
Some music, for me particularly jazz, just sounds better off a record, but lets face it, i don't really get the time to sit down and just listen to music any more! Once it becomes a background sound i couldn't care less what its played from.

Ew

Ew , I didn't know you are an audio man as well and love records

Peter

I note that most think that the need for drilling holes to such accuracy levels in wood is a waste of time and effort because of the effects of shrinkage and expansion due to changes in water content of the timber. This was also my initial thought, but then I thought of the hole size and how that size was most likely arrived at. With a pin or axle size of 0.0505" itself initially surprising to me for material specification in the 1700's, the hole may have been around 0.0520 say for a sliding fit, and I imagine that this size was arrived at from hard won experience, with that experience saying that any smaller and there would be issues from time to time when drier conditions caused wood shrinkage and a tightening of tolerances, and making it bigger just made for a looser keyboard say, so that size was made the default size for production purposes. Not having knowledge of the timbers used and their properties, I can't comment on the likely variation of hole size due to changes in humidity, but I can say that with Tasmanian Celery Top, the shrinkage is very low, low enough that window frames can be made with unseasoned timber, and there would be a low likelihood of problems as they seasoned over time. One source gives the change in dimension as 0.19% for every 1% change in moisture content, from 3% to the point of fibre saturation.http://www.woodsolutions.com.au/Wood...elery-top-pine This works out for about a 0.001" change in size for a 10% change in moisture content at these sizes if they had used Celery Top, but like I said I do not know the timber qualities of the material they used in the critical parts of the piano movement. Taking into account the use of a low movement species of timber, and a pin size of only 0.0505", I am not that surprised that a tight spec could be called for, and at some point a change in size of only 0.0005" could make the difference between a small but significant number of problems, and virtually no issues at all. Over to you blokes,
Rob.

Its dead easy to pick the difference between a CD on a transistor system and a record over a valve system. Just listen for the noise between tracks.....(and sometimes during the tracks)

I can honestly say I have never heard music fro a valve system except for guitar played thru an amp. What about music ripped from a record and recorded as wave and then converted to MP3 and played on a transistor system? I can certainly tell the difference easily. I silence the gap between tracks as well. Some of my records have no damage. I have some that have only been played a couple of times. If there is to much noise during the track I don't bother with the recording.

Some music, for me particularly jazz, just sounds better off a record, but lets face it, i don't really get the time to sit down and just listen to music any more! Once it becomes a background sound i couldn't care less what its played from.

I do sit down just to listen to music occasionally. I don't have a turntable set up to run off my audio system and in fact it does not have a magnetic preamp to allow it. I only set up the turntable to rip music. I agree about the background sound up to a point. If a radio transmission has static, I get away from it as soon as I can. My ears and me cannot deal with it. I was listening to music today in the shed. I have a cheap audio system (pretend surround - get real people) I used my tablet to provide the music for the first time. As background music, I thought it was quite acceptable. If I was sitting down, concentrating on it? I spent $1700 on a pair of speakers last year. Worth every cent. Fabulous.

Dean