Regular HS Twist Drills

Greenwood tools do sets of Dormer drills which I think are about as good as they get - pricey though. Also sold by RS components, among many others,though they only sell smaller sizes in boxes of 5 and sometimes substitute chinese ones instead.

J&L has a huge range of makes and sizes and will sell one offs down to the tiniest drills

The Hertel brand from J&L are not at all bad IMO, not as good as Dormer etc, though a lot cheaper.

You can generally find offers on sets of Dormer drils, which eases the pain a bit.

Cheers Tim

Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

Main problem is not drill sets, it is replacing the odd sizes that get broken. Dormer display boxes in retail outlets generally on contain sizes in

0.5 mm steps.

I've been using guhring drills and am very happy with them

Stephen.

A well-timed question, I have been asking myself the same. It's wort

pointing out that Greenwood are offering their boxed sets slightl cheaper in the current issue of ME. I have spoken to them in the pas and they do caution that they cannot supply replacements for the od broken drill.

Richard, sorry to piggyback on top of your posting, but I'd like to as a related question. Ideally I'd like to have a full complement of metri (0.1mm steps), imperial (1/64"), numbers and letters. Unfortunately this adds up to quite a lot of money for Dormer: 420.00 for 'jus drills'. However, although I am mostly kitted out in imperial i occurred to me that jumps of 0.1mm are much finer than 1/64" (0.4mm) Given that jobber drills are not particularly accurate and that i theory I will not be more than 0.05mm from any diameter over the rang

1-10mm am I likely to run into any problems just going metric an carefully relabelling my drill box? I appreciate that I will miss ou on values over 13/32' and X, Y, Z but that doesn't bother me.

If I need real accuracy then presumably reamers, borers etc are th answer, which leads to my final question: any recommended sources fo reamers?!

I'm sure Guhring are good, but the preicelist on their website seem even more expensive than Greenwood-Dormer - am I missing a trick, d they have cheaper distributors

-- Myford Mat

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Mine came from here

I needed some in a hurry and have been very happy with then, can't really comment on how they compare though.

Stephen.

No connection though I'm starting to sound ike thir sales rep, but J&L do them and often discount them

I know the original question was aimed at "quality" drills but I thought I would share my experience of attempting to get the range that Matt suggests "on the cheap". Yes I know it was stupid (at least I do now) but the guy selling them at the show assured me they were a quality item and the idea of having all sizes at 0.1mm steps was just too tempting. Yes some of them did look like they had been ground by hand but hey I can grind drills and I can get them accurate when I have my cutter grinder. I won't use them much until then so they won't need sharpening anyway.

Just how many ways can you be wrong? Most of them wouldn't cut at all "out of the box" and as to the sizes they were cutting - lets just say it bore no resemblance to the sizes marked on them. Most that would cut were cutting way over size and no amount of grinding would correct the situation as a number were BENT - yes - BENT. I cannot argue that they were not a "quality set" - they were certainly POOR quality, but they were cheap!!

So in my experience with drills you get what you pay for. Stick with the Dormer etc that the guys have personal experience of and make do with a more limited range. I have started to buy a few at a time as I need them and it is surprising just how quickly they build up, I know it is more expensive than buying sets but I already have the "quality tin" and at least there is not a pile of odd sizes that I never use.

I am still using Dormer, Presto and Roebuck (don't know where they came from?) drills that I have had for many years, they might be expensive but they do last.

Regards Keith

Well, in the end I bought Dormer from Greenwood.

I figured they will probably last me a lifetime.

Probably did not need the 0.1mm increments, but there you go. :c)