Sharpening drill bits by hand - Page 5


View Poll Results: Do you sharpen drill bits by hand on a bench or pedistal grinder?

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  • Yes I do it all the time!

    608 71.03%
  • No, they never cut right!

    46 5.37%
  • Sorry, I don't know how to do that!

    63 7.36%
  • Its better to throw them away!

    30 3.50%
  • No, we have a drill sharpening machine!

    94 10.98%
  • What's a drill bit?

    15 1.75%
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Thread: Sharpening drill bits by hand

  1. #81
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mazaholic View Post
    ....If i wanted a machine shop to make me an engine block..I drop off a block of steel..The machinist takes that block and mill it,drill it,bore it,hone it,grind it,line bore it,decks it....
    A good machinist would probably tell you a block of steel is not the best material to make an engine block out of.

    An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.


  2. #82
    Registered Mazaholic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Geof View Post
    A good machinist would probably tell you a block of steel is not the best material to make an engine block out of.
    I know..i was just trying to make a point.
    Making and sharpening tools by hand is a good skill to master,i don't disagree with that.
    But there are much more important things to being a machinist.



  3. #83
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    Why in the he** would I want a guy making top dollar to sharpen drills when I could send the whole lot out and have them resharpened for a buck a piece, or buy new drills, and my guy could be making parts at $60 an hour. It would be like making lathe tools instead of buying inserts! I think the old timers are justifying there skills, but we have to be progressive to make money work smarter not harder. BTW I've never sharpened a drill by hand Why would I? Just to prove I can?
    Joe



  4. #84
    Member handlewanker's Avatar
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    Dear Joe, I know a guy who just wakes up in the morning. makes a phone call lasting 30 secs, and earns twice what I earned in a month, then he goes back to sleep till mid-day.
    Last week he asked me to take him up to the hospital for some heart mnedication because his car wouldn't start.
    Turns out the battery was flat.
    I said,"wine chew getta new battery?" He just said," someone's coming to fix it".
    He preffered to get on the phone to get someone down to fix-it whenever it stopped running.
    I'm all for not getting your hands dirty but thats going from the sublime to the rediculous.
    I hope the guy who earns $60 an hour can keep doing it, with a lack of basic fundamentals he's going to need it if the going gets rough.
    Up to a point you are right about not doing it the hard or maybe the old way.
    When you live in a perfect world then the best way is the only way, cost doesn't come into it.
    I would no more expect a highly skilled brain surgeon to know how to sharpen his own sharp bits when nowadays they are all throw items anyway, prepacked, sterilised and untouched by human hand.
    In the perfect machine shop the best way is the only way, and the tooling would all be pristine, unused, brand new without a nick or a burr, waiting for the call to produce the perfect hole to microns every time, with a tool life that made scrap parts and down time negligable.
    I would venture to say that as long as I have a vent in my trousers the perfect machine shop will never exist, no matter how up to date our present technology is, due to the fact that there is a cut-off point when it doesn't pay to be perfect.
    The customer will only pay a certain amount, and is not sympathetic to a cost structure that has a blank bottom line.
    To sum it up, in Uk in the '80s where I worked, we had a chap who had worked for a number of years in Germany.
    His total experiance was with preformed tooling and throw away carbides, toolstore maintained and issued to drawing requirments.
    We were all issued with a set of drills to 12mm diam when we started there, and he couldn't shapen a tool to save his life.
    He informed us that no one in a German workshop ground their drills by hand.
    So we just showed him how anyway.
    I like the idea of the perfect workshop where everything is bright, shiny and pristine, and you get whatever you want just for the asking, but I accept the reality of the moment and go prepared to face any challenge.
    As for to-day, the finger that pushes the button rules the world.
    Ian.



  5. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by joecnc1234 View Post
    .... I think the old timers are justifying there skills,....Joe
    Well of course we are, because we have them! We're not just a bunch of green button pushers.

    An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.


  6. #86
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    I have spoken with many many co-workers that could not run a thread in a lathe, yet proclaimed themselves to be artistes at the trade of machinist.....in fact may could not run a lathe PERIOD....and yes they were green button guys, and many many of them had zero idea what the cnc program on the screen meant other than.

    T01 M06 (SAFE START BLOCK FOR T01) being where you started T01 to run from there. They had no desire to learn more, and would proclaim to all and sundrey how GOOD they were at the trade. Some of these guys COULD sharpen a drill, with a drill grinder...maybe even an Oliver drill grinder :-)...BUT one example did not know how to change tool offsets, so as he sharpened the drill that was munched by sand inclusions, he simply made a program edit to make the drill go deeper so it went thru the part......so when we came in on days the drill was starting to feed 1" above the workpiece.

    Talk about the basics, we had one guy who was a radial drill operator, decent fella, but he couldnt READ....that really played heck with a QS audit when they asked what "Safety Related Componant" on the blueprint said, he told the Auditor "I don't know, I can't read". We were slow for a couple weeks and they had this fella paint all the trash drums, 55 gallon drums, he painted them safety yellow, and then made some nice stencils that said "TRASCH", and painted that nicely in black on 20-30 drums.

    Bill



  7. #87
    Registered Mazaholic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by joecnc1234 View Post
    I think the old timers are justifying there skills,
    Hey now...i never knock the oldtimers.
    I have learned alot throughout the years from"old timers".
    You'd be suprised at what problems you'll have that will just ruin your whole day and an "old timer" will walk up and fix it in a minute.
    Ever have a chatter problem and your whole day is spent trying 200 different ideas and the "old timer" comes in on second shift and runs good parts from part one?



  8. #88
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mazaholic View Post
    Hey now...i never knock the oldtimers....
    It's okay. It's like growing up on a farm...there are always the little puppies running around yapping at your heels. They grow up and calm down after a while.

    An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.


  9. #89
    Registered fizzissist's Avatar
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    I been sharpening drills by hand for over 40 years, and I started out because I HAD to!!

    We've got 3 drill grinders, and one I happen to rather like that does a good job....yet I still do a lot of hand grinding where I need something slightly different that isn't built into the machine's capabilities. Like kissing the edges for a smooth finish, or stoning the faces for better chip break up or longer life.

    Sometimes it's just plain faster and easier, and I can't split the point on most drills within a minute or so.

    No, I ain't perfect, and no, I'm not as good as a fresh new drill. Tell ya what though, a good eyeball calibrated drill point is something to be proud of.



  10. #90
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    Have you ever made airplane parts? GE has a specification for drilling read it, it is detailed down to coolant and holes drilled per drill after they reach their max holes drilled you must mark them and put them in a controlled (locked) area. I'm sure if you're making oilfield parts or any commercial parts it doesn't matter if the point is not on center but sometimes it does. Fly safe
    Joe



  11. #91
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    It's also the reason why Boeing Surplus has so many tools for sale, and good condition ones at that! Think about GE for a second, they are deep hole drilling a turbine housing, if the bit breaks off inside there, they will pretty much wreck the housing and it will be scrap. Why? Well anything they do to get it out, is 'outside the approved process for fabrication', they are off of the 'beaten track' and could be damaging something or effecting something that will fail later. At that point, there is no safe method for removing it [and no EDM isn't safe in this situation either as you can't garrentee that you won't gouge or nick the side of the hole at some point.]

    The same thing goes for 90% of the parts made of the military and NASA. They are elliminating the 'unknowns'. If by only drilling 50 holes w/ a bit is what they decide is a safe number which will keep them away from broken bit's, then it's VERY cost effective to throw away a $5-10 bit every 50 holes instead of 1 in 100 [or even 1 in 1000] parts due to a broken bit.

    It really has nothing to do with sharpening bits at all.

    JerryFlyGuy
    The more I know... the more I realize I don't
    (Note: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not necessarily those of CNCzone and its management)


  12. #92
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    I don't think it is the worry of losing parts so much as changing the properties of the material like work hardening the material or bell mouthing the holes. Plus if I change drills every 50 parts or 10 parts I don't have to worry about cutting oversize or undersize. It's easy to see on an spc chart. If i sharpen my own drills I have no idea of the drill change frequency because I have no idea how long it will last. next someone will tell me how to resharpen taps!!!



  13. #93
    Registered Mazaholic's Avatar
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    Here's how you sharpen a tap.










    just kidding.
    But i'm sure most machinist on here do not work in a production shop, and there are many times when sharpening drills is needed.
    I've just always thought it is more of a requirement to being a tool maker and not a machinist.
    I other words...If someone were very good at running any machine in the shop,but couldn't sharpen a drill to save his life...i'd sharpen it for him,no problem.
    But i wouldn't sharpen one for a tool man.



  14. #94
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    D****d puppies!

    On the left is a tap I did sharpen because I made it. Single point boring tool for the tapping size on the right.

    It is fairly simple to sharpen largish taps with a die-grinder and a very small wheel. It doesn't meet Aerospace requirements but it is real handy when you live miles away from anywhere and your only tap snapped off near the end.

    And I don't consider myself a Toolman just a good Machinist.

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Sharpening drill bits by hand-tap-jpg  
    An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.


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    Quote Originally Posted by Mcgyver View Post
    forget 20%, did you know half the people out there are of below average intelligenc?
    Average does not always = median. IQ distribution has not been proven to be a bell curve.



  16. #96
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    yeah i know, I've done stats, was just a joke....bell curve doesn't matter though, lots of distribution shapes would give mean=median....of course depends on where in the country you measure



  17. #97
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    Geof I have only one question Why????????????



  18. #98
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    Quote Originally Posted by joecnc1234 View Post
    Geof I have only one question Why????????????
    Because I could not find a source for that diameter and pitch and I needed to tap a bunch of holes. Thread cutting was not an option because the part would have required a really complicated fixture to get it rotating around the axis of the required hole location. Thread milling was not an option because CNC mills with the capability didn't exist; this was done a wee bit further back in time than yesterday.

    An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.


  19. #99
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    Nice Geof!
    Your my hero!
    I tried making taps a few times,they worked but didn't look near as good.
    Looks like you gave them the old torch and oil dunk to harden them.



  20. #100
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    Hi Geof, doesn't it give you a buzz when you want something special and just go out and make it?
    I have come to the conclusion that what my father said is true, the more you know the easier you make it for yourself.
    Ian.



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