Buying drill bits

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Mr Ron
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Buying drill bits

Post by Mr Ron »

After looking at catalogs of shop supplies (MSC), I am overwhelmed by the different types and materials of drill bits available. On top of that, there are many different manufacturers supplying the same basic item. I am looking for the best drill bit for aluminum, specifically wrought alloys (6061,2024, 7075). The price for a 1/4" bit can range anywhere from a couple of dollars to $50 and more. I would like to get a selection of most used bits, some fractional and some numbered, for use on aluminum. I'm looking for around 15 bits. What are your recommendations as to manufacturer, cost, import, domestic. I am an amateur machinist, so production is not a factor. I want something that will last , but not be prohibitively expensive. What say you?

P.S. Which do you think would be the best path to take; ie: qty 5 HSS 1/4" bit vs qty 1 carbide 1/4" bit. I know there are many factors that enter into such a decision, but take it from an amateur's point of view. Who would think there would be so many opinions!
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Steggy
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by Steggy »

Mr Ron wrote:After looking at catalogs of shop supplies (MSC), I am overwhelmed by the different types and materials of drill bits available. On top of that, there are many different manufacturers supplying the same basic item. I am looking for the best drill bit for aluminum, specifically wrought alloys (6061,2024, 7075). The price for a 1/4" bit can range anywhere from a couple of dollars to $50 and more. I would like to get a selection of most used bits, some fractional and some numbered, for use on aluminum. I'm looking for around 15 bits. What are your recommendations as to manufacturer, cost, import, domestic. I am an amateur machinist, so production is not a factor. I want something that will last , but not be prohibitively expensive. What say you?

P.S. Which do you think would be the best path to take; ie: qty 5 HSS 1/4" bit vs qty 1 carbide 1/4" bit. I know there are many factors that enter into such a decision, but take it from an amateur's point of view. Who would think there would be so many opinions!
Others might quibble with me, but I use black oxide coated HSS drills for aluminum, as well as mild and stainless steels. I'm just not sold on TiN-coated drills—my HSS drills have lasted a long time, despite constant use. I would never consider carbide for aluminum, unless I was in a production environment.

One thing I do not do is drill dry. Aside from prolonging drill life, use of a proper lubricant will improve hole finish and accuracy. With some soft forms of aluminum, the correct lubricant will reduce the tendency for chips to stick to the drill and clog the flutes. My go-to elixir for aluminum drilling is a mixture of lard-type cutting oil and mineral spirits, 10 percent oil, 90 percent mineral spirits. I use the opposite mixture for drilling stainless or any of the chrome-moly alloys. When drilling mild steel, I use straight cutting oil. The 10/90 mixture I use with aluminum also works well in brass and bronze.

As for buying fractional drills, getting them piecemeal often winds up being as or more expensive than buying an indexed set, assuming you want the full range of sizes. Ditto for the number sizes. The only drills I buy piecemeal are specific letter sizes (e.g., letter F, which is the tap drill for 5-16"-18) or metric sizes.
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Mr Ron
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by Mr Ron »

The only drill bits I use on a regular basis are tap drills and clearance drills for the machine screw sizes, usually 2-56 to 10-32 and 1/4-20 and 3/8-16. These sizes would cover about 95% of my needs. I have bits from 20 years ago that are still brand new, never used.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
SteveM
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by SteveM »

I get my drills at garage sales and estate sales. All of them are high-speed, made in USA, brands such as Cleveland and Morse.

I have a Drill Doctor, which I then use to sharpen them up, and then I put them in Huot drill dispensers (the ones with 4-5 drawers that can hold a pile of each size). It might not sharpen them perfect, but the chips come out darn near the same out of each flute.

Occasionally, I will buy a lot off ebay.

I don't use carbide much. I have a handful of them if I need them

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pete
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by pete »

Depends on you exact needs Ron. For non production use I'm not a great believer in all those fancy coatings either. Sharpen it once and the coatings gone on the cutting edge. It may still help with chip evacuation though. That said I did buy a good set of fractional, numbered and letter that are TiN coated because they were at a decent sale price and use those specificaly for tapping and clearance holes. General hole punching I've got half decent black oxide coated fractionals. If you get lucky maybe some of the cheap offshore drills are ok. I've never once been lucky that way it seems. I've wasted enough money trying to save it with cutting tools I'm now biased. I try and buy at the minimum at the mid range price and if there not guaranteed North American or East / West European made I pass.

Good durable cutting tools are expensive to produce no matter what the price of labor is. That cheap price means to me that one or more critical steps had corners cut during there manufacturing. Watching the Sandvik Coromant video on Youtube about how carbide inserts are made is more than eye opening about why good quality cutting tools cost so much today and is just one example of what I mean. But I also don't have any machine tool suppliers less than 3 hrs away. If a cutting tool fails and I have no spares I'd have to wait up to a week or more to get a replacement through the mail. If there was a supplier local to me that might change what I'd be willing to take a chance on. And I can't recall the last time I drilled a hole dry other than in cast iron like BigDumbDinosaur said. Keeping the tool edge cool, not overspeeding it and not letting it rub does more for tool life than anything else I can think of in a home shop. Some of my equipment is metric so a full 115 pc set still allows in my opinion tap drilling even for metric threads with the closest equivalent drill to the recommended metric size. If I only needed a limited number of drills like you said you wanted then it would be tough to beat Guhring HSS, better be sitting down when pricing them tho. :-)
Mr Ron
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by Mr Ron »

The thing that worries me the most is if I bite the bullet and spend say $30 for a single drill bit, what if I damage it; chip and edge for example, I'm out $30. Is a high end drill bit less susceptible to damage over a garden variety HSS bit?

OBTW, has anyone tried those single flute bits from Japan? The name is Gekkou and a 1/4" bit costs $6.49.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
Magicniner
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by Magicniner »

Because I work mainly in metric I bought 3 sets of Jobber drills with 0.5mm increments from 1mm to 13mm plus common tapping sizes (one for each mill and one for the lathe), a set from 1mm to 6mm in 0.1mm increments, a set from 6mm to 10mm in 0.1mm increments and then a set from 1/16 to 1/14 in 1/32 increments, all of these are Dormer.
After that I bought drill bits for specific jobs where needed.
I buy replacement small bits in boxes of 10 as I break/blunt them more often and it's cheaper in the long run.
I don't shop for the best or the cheapest, just good quality bits which industrial customers of my tool supplier find acceptable.
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seal killer
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by seal killer »

Mr. Ron--

I (now) have several sets of bits. But, I started with a 115pc set of TiN coated bits. I have set(s) of black oxide, as well. I replace the TiN and black oxide on an as needed basis. I usually buy multiple replacements because it is cheaper (per bit) and the ones that need replacement are usually the ones I use most often.

I have carbide bits, but I only buy them as needed . . . but even then, I usually buy more than one. (I don't buy more than one of those high dollar ones, though!)

TiN and black oxide are inexpensive, with black oxide being the least expensive.

--Bill
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John Hasler
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by John Hasler »

Mr Ron wrote:The thing that worries me the most is if I bite the bullet and spend say $30 for a single drill bit, what if I damage it; chip and edge for example, I'm out $30. Is a high end drill bit less susceptible to damage over a garden variety HSS bit?

OBTW, has anyone tried those single flute bits from Japan? The name is Gekkou and a 1/4" bit costs $6.49.
Do you have a link? I find lots of enthusing about Gekkou bits but no single flute.
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Nelson
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by Nelson »

Hard to find US made drills these days, and I don't want to buy offshore ones. People tell me NOT to buy a set, because then I am buying sizes I may never use. I have a Triumph 090560 T123 No 1-No 60 Metal Index Size Ranger 1/16-Inch-1/2 by 64ths High Speed Steel Drill Set, Bright Finish set on my Amazon wish list at $289.72.
What brands are you guys buying, and where?
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Downwindtracker2
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by Downwindtracker2 »

I've used enough drill bits over the years as to have some strong opinions. Millwrights abuse drill bits, in comparison, machinists baby them. Cobalt drills are easily worth it when free hand drilling, but only in sizes very commonly used, like 1/4" tap hole. They are cost effective, even.

Our purchasing agent bought some cheap imports once. At this job, we didn't get cobalts. To drill a single hole we would use two or three drill bits, so we would grab a handful. He went back to Cleveland brand. They were OK, they would last more than one hole.
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liveaboard
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Re: Buying drill bits

Post by liveaboard »

I've been buying high quality drill bits at low prices from my steel supplier; they do a lot of hardware and tools at competitive prices.
I think the production cost of drill bits [like everything else] has plummeted in the last decade or two, but often the savings have not been passed on to consumers.
I buy packs of 10 small [3 to 6mm] cobalt drills for a few bucks. larger ones [which I don't wear out as fast] I buy 2 or 3.
Cobalt drill bits have been around for decades, and used to be very expensive.

Big mt 2 bits for the drill press [15 to 30mm] are as much as $10 for good German hss. Still, not bad considering the high prices I have to pay for most things here in Europe.
These carry EU markings, and are probably made in Europe; when an item is produced entirely by machines, there's not much saving in Chinese manufacture. I don't really care where things are made so I don't pay attention to it.
Anyway, my point is shop around; drill bits are far cheaper than they used to be.

I know there are special bits for aluminum, with specific cutting angles. I've never actually seen one though.
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