# drill sharpener



## porthos (May 18, 2019)

anyone have any comments on the drill sharpener that bolts to your grinder table. they cost  around $30.00 +-   i'm trying to stay away  from drill doctor. i read many negative comments


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## bob308 (May 18, 2019)

they can be made to work quite well. I use one on my tool bit sharpener.


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## Winegrower (May 18, 2019)

When I was about 10, my dad, a toolmaker, showed me how to sharpen drills by hand.   That's worked fine for 62 years so far.


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## Winegrower (May 18, 2019)

Well, ok, not just by hand, had to have a grinding wheel.


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## jcp (May 18, 2019)

I have a General brand but I think nearly all of them are made in the same plant, most likely in China. Mine works well enough with bits 3/16ths" thru 1/2" diameters, if they are standard helix.


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## Jubil (May 18, 2019)

I too have the General sharpener and a Drill Doctor. Both work well for me as long as I follow the instructions. 
Chuck


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## T Bredehoft (May 18, 2019)

I use my Drill Doctors (have two different) gently, checking to verify that the grind is  symmetrical. Down to a bit below 1/8th. below that I do by hand. Sharpened a .047 drill, fresh out of the box, that wouldn't cut. now it does.


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## WCraig (May 19, 2019)

porthos said:


> anyone have any comments on the drill sharpener that bolts to your grinder table. they cost  around $30.00 +-   i'm trying to stay away  from drill doctor. i read many negative comments



I was looking at the one that Lee Valley offers ($25 Canadian):












						Drill Grinding Guide - Lee Valley Tools
					






					www.leevalley.com
				




They show grinding on the side of the grinding wheel--which I won't do.  Is that is the _only_ way to use it with a grinder?

I confirmed by email that it should work fine with a 1X42 belt sander.  They also sell both Blue Zirconia and 3M Trizact belts for grinding/sharpening steel.  The Trizact belts go all the way up to 6 micron / 2000x grit!

This one is apparently designed to handle 1/8" to 3/4" drills.  Others seem to be limited to 1/2" drills.

For $25 (and Lee Valley's generous return policy), I'm inclined to take a chance on it.  Just have to get a few other projects out of the queue first!

Craig


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## matthewsx (May 19, 2019)

I recently decided to learn to sharpen my drills by hand, it took a bit of practice but I had it down in less than an hour. My dad had one like shown in the picture and I seem to remember mixed results with it. I use a belt sander.

Cheers,

john


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## mickri (May 19, 2019)

I have one like in the picture.  Mine is an old craftsman that I got at an auction for under $10.  Came in its original box with the instructions on how to use it.  I have not had any problems using it.  I followed the instructions.  There is also a video by Halligan142 where he tested one and got good results.


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## stupoty (May 20, 2019)

I have an old one and a newer one, the newer one seems like a recast from an old one as everything is the same but shrunk a little (or maybe they repaired their mould) The new one I have never been able to get to grind drills properly, the old one works fine.  

I have looked at them both quite a lot and can't exactly figure out why one works and the other doesn't.

Stu


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## tech610 (May 20, 2019)

I have both, a Drill Doctor and a General, but I grind my drills by hand. I use the hand grinding method that Tom from Tom's techniques shows in his video. My very old set of a Makita drill bits is sharpened from the factory just like Tom shows. 



I bought a drill sharpening gage for that.


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## Bob Korves (May 20, 2019)

I started out about 35-40 years ago with an old Sears Craftsman grinding tool, just like the Lee Valley one shown in post 8.  Many brand names have been used on that style of tool, and they are still being made.  It took plenty of practice time and some help from the master mechanics and machinists where I worked to start making any real progress, but I eventually got the hang of it and have ground multiple hundreds of bits with that jig, and they do not take long to do and turn out very nice.  Yes, Virginia, you can grind on the side of the wheel.  Be careful.  The pros at work also taught me how to grind drills by hand and eye, with just a bench grinder and a drill point gauge to check the progress.  It took many years of off and on practice to do a really good job with that method, but very little equipment is needed, and you can easily do it in someone else's shop with just the grinder and a drill point gauge -- and the skills!  Doing them by hand is also the only way I can grind large drills that will not fit the jigs I have.  Machines that will do a 2" drill are pretty expensive and take up precious space in a small hobby shop.  About 5 years ago I bought a Drill Doctor 750X drill grinder, because I had hundreds of drills that needed grinding.  It, too, does fine work, after figuring out how it works.

All of these methods, and I am sure many others, work fine, but ONLY after you know and understand what you are trying to achieve and how to get there.  Drills are made with differing helix angles and web thickness, and are used on materials from soft plastics to barely drill-able metals, some tough, some brittle, some gummy.  So sometimes we use different angles, and add split points, thinned webs, multiple angles, and other features to make the drill better suited to the current job at hand.  Some of us (like me) are frugal to the core and buy used drills, sometimes pails full.  Each and every one needs to be cleaned up, shank deburred, evaluated for what it might best be used for, and then ground to something worthwhile to add to my collection.  Each one is a separate challenge.  

So, I have had a lot of practice.  Like everybody else, the first attempts do not go well at all, backwards angles, uneven cutting edge lengths, and other issues are quite frustrating, and then come back again when moving to a tiny or huge drill, or drills with varying geometry.

I have found that the best approach for me, with a pile of drills from 1/8" to 1-1/4" diameter in front of me, with all kinds of different helix angles, web thickness, etc., the best thing to do is to look each drill over carefully for how it is configured, and then set up a reasonable guess of what might work on that drill, set it up, and then take a couple light cuts to start the process.  Then remove and inspect it and see if the grind you are generating seems close to what you are looking for.  If so, grind some more, and then check the work again, making changes and retrying until you are happy with the result.  It is also helpful when you have a pile of drill bits to segregate them first by diameter, and then subdivide by web thickness and helix angle.  In that way, fewer adjustments and less drastic adjustments are needed from one drill to the next.

It may sound counter intuitive, but grinding large drills is much easier that grinding small ones, easier to evaluate and inspect, progresses slower, just takes longer.  Grinding tiny drills takes patience and good eyes, which I am losing.  It can be done.  Success is when you can grind a drill, try it out, make a few tweaks, try it again, and it is working well.  Mastery is when you can grind a drill and it works like magic on what you are cutting, every time, first try.  I am still not quite there yet, and I wonder if any of us ever really get there...

Bottom line, WE have to be the smart part of the equation.  There are too many variables to get it right, regardless of what machine is holding the drill.  In my experience, ALL of them work, some a little more operator friendly than others, but NONE of them do a good job every time without a savvy operator.  A real craftsman does not blame his tools...


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## darkzero (May 20, 2019)

I've also have a Drill Doctor, 750X. I've heard people say bad things about them too but I don't understand why. I don't use mine often but it works great for me. I have the holder to do LH drills also & it works great. Only thing is it's loud and I could never get it to sharpen S&D drills but that don't matter much to me. I've even sharpened solid carbide drills with it.


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## Ulma Doctor (May 20, 2019)

i have never used a drill bit sharpener.
i was taught to sharpen drill bits by hand by an old machinist, when i was a pup.
it took about 2 weeks of ruining drill bits before the lightbulb went on in my pee brain.
i was able to save most of the bits i ruined through ignorance, even if they were stub lengths when i was done 

now, i don't even think when i'm sharpening, it just happens


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## pontiac428 (May 20, 2019)

I think Darex is a reputable name in tool sharpening, and guess who designed and made the Drill Doctor.  I got mine as a hand-me-down from my Dad over 20 years ago, and it still kicks butt.  For large drills, LH, etc. I just use a compound fixture on my cutter grinder, but for everyday use, the Doctor is always ready.


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## MrWhoopee (May 22, 2019)

In my machine shop class at the Junior College, Harry required that we be able to hand sharpen a drill in less than 2 minutes. He maintained that if it took longer you should just throw it away and get a new one. I've never used anything but a bench grinder and drill point gauge.


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## westerner (May 22, 2019)

darkzero said:


> I've also have a Drill Doctor, 750X. I've heard people say bad things about them too but I don't understand why. I don't use mine often but it works great for me. I have the holder to do LH drills also & it works great. Only thing is it's loud and I could never get it to sharpen S&D drills but that don't matter much to me. I've even sharpened solid carbide drills with it.


Yup. I like the Drill Doctor. I have owned it for many years. It is especially useful for showing me my errors when I sharpened the bit freehand before, when I was too hurried to set up the Doctor. I can sharpen a drill by hand to cut well and have been doing so for decades, but the machine is a whole lot more consistent. (This applies to SO many things we do, eh?)


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## Flyinfool (May 22, 2019)

Back in high school we were taught to sharpen drill bits and graded on the results.
I have tried a couple of different drill grinders but never could get a truly sharp drill bit. I only do it by hand now even though I am not very good at it.


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## Moper361 (May 30, 2019)

WCraig said:


> I was looking at the one that Lee Valley offers ($25 Canadian):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This was my idea to eliminate grinding on the side of a stone as i was of the same concern as yourself .i made up an adaptor to hold a grinding disc and use this for shapening drills with the craftman style sharpener from lee valley .it works great and very happy with it so far .i was sceptical how the finish would be as the disc speed is well down from what the ooerating rpm for it is however it does a nice job


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