Suggestions for drills

J

JMBrewer

H-M Supporter - Gold Member
H-M Supporter Gold Member
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Oct 2, 2021
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Waiting on my lathe and mill to show up and using the time to buy tooling, etc.. Does anyone have any suggestions for a decent set of jobber length drills to begin with? Was thinking about picking up a full set to get started. I can see where prices/quality run the full gamut so was wanting something somewhere in the middle to get started. Thanks for any advice
 
Planning and executing plans when awaiting a new toy is a good thing to do. On the other hand, You don't know what drill bits you will be needing, but you can bet that out of those 118 (or how many are listed) there will be some you won't ever use. If I had to guess the percentage you will need it might be as high as 30% of those, may only be 20%.

My advice:

Wait till you need a drill, then buy two of the very best. You will save considerable money, (time, not so much) but as you accumulate duplicates you can devise a way of storage for them.

I have pill bottles for about 30 drills all smaller than 3/16, that I've bought 6 at a time of, over time, from .036 on up.
 
That's not a bad idea. Better to start off with quality over quantity.
 
What US company would you suggest sticking with?
 
I refuse to purchase twist drills that are not High Speed Steel. If you're considering drills I would recommend buying good quality right off, even if it means buying smaller quantities. You will not regret owning good quality HSS drills.

For larger sets, I have purchased from various vendors, even found a couple of nice used sets that are marked HS or HSS. When I need good quality, I turn to Triumph Twist Drill. They aren't the only vendor to get good quality, but they are my go-to when I need quality individual replacements, etc.
 
Lot of top quality drills out there . Precision Twist is an old one that can be picked up off the bay at times . Go with Cobalt if you can find them for materials other than Aluminum . HSS bright is fine for aluminum and much cheaper .
 
I bought a Craftsman drill set many years ago before I got into machining and have upgraded the ones I use the most with quality HSS ones from McMaster-Carr and Travers. I think the set I have has 36 or so drills up to 1/2". It's nice having a drill without waiting for it to arrive, but it's nicer to have a drill that actually works well. I also bought a drill index for number and letter drills and only buy the ones I need as needed. I am usually ordering something every couple weeks, so I add another drill size I anticipate needing and over time I have filled it out with most of the sizes I need and the index is still only a third full. I have a metric drill index too, but found that the number and letter sizes are close enough most times that I buy those instead of the metric drills for tapping and clearance holes.
 
Do y'all suggest the same strategy for taps as well? Buy single as needed as opposed to a full set of taps/dies?
 
Look at the indexes for drill/tap.
As a noob I would suggest buying the index with the taps.
Organization is where I see many companies fail.
They wait until they have more stuff than they can figure out where to put ...than they want to start thinking of organization.
Buy HSS and NOTHING less, becarefull buying coated drills and taps unless you understand the coatings.
 
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