Tooling Supplier Ideas?

Have not bought new custom, but have had custom bits made elsewhere re-sharpened by them. So, your mileage may vary...

FWIW they did an excellent job for a reasonable price.

Hey Joe,

Where would you get it in the US? Maybe the same suppliers are here too.

Is it a step-drill / Unibit style, or am I reading it wrong?

Brian Laws>I've got a customer in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada...

How thick is the material being drilled?

Sounds like a Unibit would work if the workpieces are thin enough (which could be 6 mm on some unibits).

Joe Gwinn

Unibits and clones are widely available. MSC sells them, as do most industrial supply houses, and some local hardware stores.

Yep, that's one of the clones (or rebranded Unibit).

They *really* like lubrication while cutting, especially if one is cutting stainless steel.

Joe

Hey Joe,

If the Unibit style is what you want, then ANY good supplier here in Ontario, especially Toronto/Mississauga/Oakville area will do. Any/all of the better electrical wholesalers will handle Klein tools, and of course KBC Tools, Travers, even Canadian Tire or Princess Auto (equivalent to Harbor Freight). Lots of places.

Torbram Electric is a Klein Tools distributor

7270 Torbram Road, (is their Head Office) Mississauga, Ont. Phone: 905-671-0800

KBC Tools, Toronto Branch is actually in Mississauga, at

6200 Kennedy (not far from the Toronto Airport) 1-905-564-6600

Travers operates in Canada out of Quebec (fairly good quality)

1-800-503-0843

Canadian Tire (not my best suggestion for quality) is a retailer and is guaranteed to be somewhere with-in 2 or 3 miles of wherever your customer is in Mississauga. They have LOTS of stores!!

Not too sure where Princess Auto might be there, but of this short list they will be the most economical supplier of a for sure Chinese clone.

Take care. Good Luck.

Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario.

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Hmm ... this sounds like a metric version of a Unibit. I wonder if they make them in metric steps? There are versions in 1/16" steps, and other versions with three target dimensions (for conduit fittings, IIRC), and a bunch of smaller steps joining them.

O.K. Google took me first to:

which has various ones which will combine two of your desired diameters in one tool, but skip over a third of the diameters.

But perhaps they can make a special?

Here is another maker -- starting at 6mm, hitting 8mm, 10mm, and again bracketing your desired 15mm with 14mm and 16mm.

Perhaps a custom grind to take the 16mm step down to 15mm?

All this depends on whether each diameter has to protrude a certain distance beyond the next, or whether this is simply for making three different sizes of holes in sheet metal without a tool change.

Klein seems to hold the trademark name on the Unibit -- and they make both metric and the original inch sizes, so maybe they can make a special for not too much extra cost -- depending on whether the depth of each step needs to be controlled.

Understood.

Good Luck, DoN.

It doesn't look that hard to make one's own special unibit from O1 steel.

Joe Gwinn

This is the traditional step drill, which I think is what Joe is looking for:

It seems the term has been appropriated to refer to Unibit type drills as well.