Drill sharpener ownership, general questions.

[turnworks]

Not the best title but couldn't come up with better.

Interested in those that have them whether it was worth the cost and time or not and the reasons. More trying to understand the reasons behind having one.

Not talking about the cheap stuff but the industrial machines.

Is it strictly a cost thing(resharpen vs. buying new) and nothing else? Are the benefits to having one like changing point angles, web thinning, split ect that you can't normally get from a drill manufacture that makes it worth it?

In general is a sharpening machine only worthwhile for cnc shops? Manual machine shops just grind by hand?

Also would like to know the brands you have along with any to avoid.

Interested to hear peoples thoughts on this. Thanks.

 

[Garwood]

I have a TRD drill grinder for 13/16 and under drill bits. It works good, easy to use.

I don't use it very often. I buy new performance drill bits for all the small drills in the CNC's. I do run a couple large HSS twist drills in CNC lathes and those I just sharpen by hand.

I generally don't modify the point angle or split points on small drills so the drill grinder is really only used for drills too small to effectively freehand on a belt grinder when I need a sharp drill right now and can only find the size I need in the dull drill bucket.

Honestly hard to justify even owning the damn thing when I think about it. It's probably worth a grand and it probably hasn't earned anywhere close to that in savings over the 20 years I've owned it. If I hadn't got it for free I wouldn't have it.

If I ran across a large size premium sharpener for $500 or so that could sharpen and split the points accurately on large drill bits, say 1" to 3" range, I'd want to buy it. Not sure I would because common sense says it's a dumb idea, but I'd strongly consider it.

 

[L Vanice]

I have been using TDR/SRD drill grinders for a few decades now. I appreciate their ease of use and speed, the result of great design and quality manufacture. New price is $1400 and up, but there are usually one or two used ones on eBay. Watch out for missing or broken parts; chucks are expensive.

80S is for bits under 1/8" (no longer made)
80M is for under 13/16" 76M is an older (1976) model that works as well as the new one.
82R is for under 13/16"
82B is for under 1-1/2" and needs two chucks and two wheel sizes.

www.Drill-Grinder.com – For the fastest Drill Sharpener, the easiest Drill Grinder, and the quickest Point Splitter you can buy!

They make separate machines for point splitting, but I have never owned one. They make left hand and point splitting attachments and tap, reamer and end mill attachments for some of the drill grinders, but I have never used them.

Larry

 

[SeymourDumore]

Interested in those that have them whether it was worth the cost and time or not and the reasons. More trying to understand the reasons behind having one.

I have 3 different Darex drill sharpeners.
The first one - the little cheapass DrillDoctor - was out of financial reasons.
Manually drilling multiple hundreds of #29 holes through Inconel on a Hardinge using oil, back when I couldn't afford to take a piss, let alone a pot to do it in.
I actually got so good at sharpening those, and similar size drills that the result was better than the PTD factory grind. ( not for size, but for life )

Forward a few years, and found a very very good buy on a Darex M5 with a 10 minute local pickup.
There was no way I could let it slip for $150 with a fresh set of wheels.
I started using it to resharp larger drills. This time though not as much for cost reasons, rather to make sure that there was never ever a hole that I did not have a drill for in-house.
By this time I did have just about any and every size of inch and metric drills under 1/2", so I knew that even if it was a random one-off quicky to drill, I had the tool to do it.
For production, I always buy a whole pack ( 10 or a dozen, whichever ). When I get through them, I do go and buy a new pack, but I also resharp the worn ones.
Most often I get very similar results out of a resharp as the original. But again, this is mostly to make sure that I am never out of a drill.

The 3rd one was a hand-me-down Darex V390 for absolutely free.
It was only used a few times for absolute PITA application ( think 3mm and under, 30X through Ti ) where each hole required a few resharps to get done.
In this case, it is absolutely cost reason for resharping, but then again, it is pretty specific.

Other than that, I do not resharp drills under 3/16 anymore, and anything over 7/16 is pretty much always drilled with a replaceable tip carbide or insert drills.

 

[CarbideBob]

I have seen very serious drill point grinders go for less than scrap metal as everyone has gone to cnc now so maybe watch for one.
Make sure you get the tooling.

 

[ratbldr427]

Look for a Harig Step Tool. Made somewhat like an end mill sharpener. If you can find the instructions on line then that will explain what they can do. They often sell for way less than the end mill sharpeners.

 

[MwTech Inc]

Darex M5
Be lost without it, can do up to 1 1/8 with large attachment.
Just take a std .625 bit at McMaster,2931A52 $34
Now be drilling and have it go a bit dull. walk over give it a clean up and continue on your way.
Or i guess spend $34 bucks and then continue
Doesn't take very long to pay for a good machine.

 

[Gordon Heaton]

At work I use a Darex V390. It works well once set up and does a nice job splitting points. Like every other drill grinder I've seen, you have to 'get to know it' and pay attention to details.

 

[Shaybuilder]

I have a Darex SP2500 and wouldn't be without it. I use a lot of very small drills and this will sharpen them and split the point better than some new drills.

 

[mhajicek]

When a brand new decent quality cobalt splitpoint drill is $1.35 each in bags of ten, it's not worth the time to walk over to the sharpener. Just throw it away and grab a new one. It's a 15 minute drive to pick up another bag if I don't have any on hand.

 

[SeymourDumore]

When a brand new decent quality cobalt splitpoint drill is $1.35 each in bags of ten, ...

I do agree, but ....

It is not $1.35, rather $4.00 - ish, even in ten pieces https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/78543816

If you need 4 different sizes in the same 'hood while you ain't got nothing to get going, that's $160 just to get started.

After that, one of these sure does look like a savior: darex drill doctor - Google Search

 

[Clive603]

Production level CNC shops can generally arrange to operate drills under pretty optimal conditions. They get good life and the cost penalty per hole / job of throwing away isn't worth the hassle of regrinding and coping with a different lengths of re-ground drills. (There is a firm 9 miles up the road from me where I'd really like to go dumpster diving as they operate that policy on everything with strict tooling lives and fill a decent sized bin every month. Unfortunately its a sealed bin with a small hatch!)

For smaller outfits, manual shops, especially those specialising in repair / recon work, its more about the cost of having enough drills of every size on hand for immediate replacement when you kill one off. As Seymour says this pretty soon gets uneconomical if you use lots of sizes. As such shops tend to do. When your primary hole maker is a manual pillar drill getting the official life out of a drill is pure fantasy.

I got the drill sharpener and tap re-profiler attachment for my Clarkson T&C grinder. More limited than a full on system but uber quick and easy to use. Under 60 seconds from "not sharp or damaged it" assessment to really, really sharp and back in the drill. I now routinely re-do any drills that look less than perfect before starting a job. There is no doubt that the hole quality has improved and its made it very clear how looks and feels OK isn't really up to scratch.

Previously I used a Picador device, effective but slow and tricky enough to set that I needed to get in the mood so drills in "still makes holes" condition tended to build up until I got a burr under my saddle.

Standard Clarkson is limited to 5/8". Contemplating whether to build a bigger copy to handle my larger drills or just go four facet on them.

Compared to the Clarkson, which uses a 6 jaw chuck to hold the drills, the ergonomics of most "affordable" drill sharpeners in the drill holding and setting up side suck.

I do wonder if re-inventing the centralising jaws used on the Dormer 108 machines ( Dormer 108 Drill Grinder ) would be a worthwhile improvement to machines using a V-trough type carrier. I imagine the support provided to smaller drills would be better too. My experience of less costly machines using that style of carrier is that the arrangements for setting projection and arranging exact 180° flip to do the second edge are somewhat inadequate and less than reliable.

That Dormer manual lists the times required to sharpen a drill. Which are interestingly brief. Looking at the thing I reckon 25 seconds to load and set up a drill is - ahem - short, very short.

Clive

 

[projectnut]

Not the best title but couldn't come up with better.

Interested in those that have them whether it was worth the cost and time or not and the reasons. More trying to understand the reasons behind having one.

Not talking about the cheap stuff but the industrial machines.

Is it strictly a cost thing(resharpen vs. buying new) and nothing else? Are the benefits to having one like changing point angles, web thinning, split ect that you can't normally get from a drill manufacture that makes it worth it?

In general is a sharpening machine only worthwhile for cnc shops? Manual machine shops just grind by hand?

Also would like to know the brands you have along with any to avoid.

Interested to hear peoples thoughts on this. Thanks.

In my case it's more of a convenience than a cost saving measure. I've had a 1970's era Black Diamond drill grinder for around 7 years now, and it's more than paid for itself in the convenience it's provided. The machine is a model 65 originally built for the military. It was one of those more than questionable buys made by a local National Guard repair depot. It's a 3-phase machine, but the depot location didn't have 3 phase power. It sat in a storeroom for over 30 years before it was sold off at an auction. The new owner didn't need it but bought it as part of an auction lot. Once again it sat in a storeroom for another 5 years before he asked me if I was interested in it. I jumped at the chance since I had a worn-out Drill Doctor that was purchased out of necessity when a Darex model 90 was stolen.

I paid less than scrap price for the Black Diamond and use it on a monthly basis. It handles drills from #1 to 33, A to Z, and 1/16" to 3/4". I usually put drills needing to be resharpened in a box by the machine. About once a month I sharpen 50 or so in my spare time. In most cases the machine does a better job than when the drills were purchased new.

If I had to pay retail price, I wouldn't have even considered making the purchase. However, at the price I paid it's saved me hours of time either hand sharpening or dealing with vendors trying to order replacement drills.

 

[Mcgyver]

I do agree, but ....

It is not $1.35, rather $4.00 - ish, even in ten pieces https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/78543816

right. You always here this refrain, throw the small ones out, not worth it. Doesn't make sense to me. You don't futz about sharpening one at time (except in an emergency), you sharpen a hundred. Put the dull ones aside and when things are slow, batch them. I've a little Christen drill grinder, does 0.02" to 3/8. Its easily under 1 per minute once you get set up, probably 100/hour if you went at it steadily. What else are you doing that has that sort of payback?

It also avoids the futzing around ordering, paying for and waiting for something. I'd rather be sharpening than doing admin crap.

 

[Gordon Heaton]

. . .After that, one of these sure does look like a savior: darex drill doctor - Google Search

Those Drill Doctors are garbage. They'll work for a few drills, then rapidly degrade. The collets and cams are made of cheap plastic and the cam faces will wear rapidly in the presence of grinding dust and then no matter what you do you'll get a crappy grind. Nothing but frustration. The wheels aren't up to much either.

You might try for a better price at MSC. The drill you link to shows $2.93 when I sign in. That's still significant, though.

 

[jscpm]

You write your post as though you think that a new drill as it comes from the factory is sharp enough. That is your first problem.

 

[Terry Keeley]

Got a Black Diamond drill grinder a few years back and found parts on Flee Bay so I can sharpen #80 to 3/4", love it!

Was drilling some deep 3/64" holes in Ti a while back and when the drill started complaining I touched it up on the BD and wala, cutting like butter again. It also makes cheap new reduced shank drills (silver and demming) cut way better, I'd highly recommend one.

 

[Kalispel]

I stumbled into owning an Optima grinder that has all the collets and a split point attachment. It took me a day to figure out how the mechanism works. The split point part is especially clever. I went crazy with it for about a week and ground a bunch of bits. I concluded the regrinds are as good or better than fresh bits. Then my discovery phase was over and the thing mostly sits idle. We use carbide in the CNCs. Maybe I would use it more if I could find a CBN wheel for the carbide. I keep it because we have a big collection of HSS bits. It is worth the time to put an edge on a larger bit when we occasionally use one.

 

[eKretz]

I stumbled into owning an Optima grinder that has all the collets and a split point attachment. It took me a day to figure out how the mechanism works. The split point part is especially clever. I went crazy with it for about a week and ground a bunch of bits. I concluded the regrinds are as good or better than fresh bits. Then my discovery phase was over and the thing mostly sits idle. We use carbide in the CNCs. Maybe I would use it more if I could find a CBN wheel for the carbide. I keep it because we have a big collection of HSS bits. It is worth the time to put an edge on a larger bit when we occasionally use one.

You need a diamond wheel for carbide. CBN is for steel.

I have a Black Diamond grinder, use it all the time. Takes very little time to sharpen a drill and split the point. Might not be worth it in a production shop for tiny drills, but definitely worth it for larger ones. Doing them in batches of certain sizes especially so.

 

[Kalispel]

Thanks. I know next to nothing about grinding.