Sharpening drills on a grinder

I have thrown away one of those decades ago.

Nick

Robin hi, I've had one for a number of years and it works OK although I find them a bit fiddly to use. They do vary a lot in build quality but all do a similar job. I have not had much success with small drills (less than 3mm) and to be honest as time has passed and I regain some of my apprenticeship skills I now sharpen most drils by hand.

These are a good starting point and in my opinion worth the =A38.50 as once you get the hang of it they help with the usual problem of one land being longer than the other.

Don't know about Cobalt but would think that will just be a change in grinding wheel and some different angles on the grinding jig.

Best regards

Keith

Thanks for the reply. As expected it didn't come with any instructions, so I'm not 100% sure if I'll be using it correctly. I presume it needs to be at the right height so the drill is rubbing on the vertical part of the wheel (i.e. the 90 degree point, if you see what I mean). Do I need to rotate the drill whilst sharpening (apart from changing lands)?

You might try emailing Picador who I think made these.

Wayne...

Robin

I'm sure that I still have the instructions for mine in the workshop, I'll find them out tomorrow and scan them for you if I can sort out your e-mail address. Sorry can't do it tonight as I'm on my way out to exchange some beer tokens, I'm sure you will understand.

Best regards

Keith

Thanks, Keith, my e-mail address is:

robin (at) creffield (dot) com

Hope you got a good deal on your beer tokens. I exchanged some the other night and only ended up with a headache... :)

Robin

Hi, should be with you but let me know if it isn't and I will send from another account. Although Hotmail seems to be working OK this morning I had a lot of trouble with it yesterday and finally gave up in the afternoon.

No didn't get a headache this morning but it seems that these tokens don't go as far as they used to - less beer per token!! I suppose John S will say it's more to do with this Southern Beer but I seem to remember tokens don't go far up north either.

Best regards

Keith

Thanks for the manual, John. I'm sure it will get me started on the basics so I can advance to Nick's level!!!!

Robin

It is not my level, it is a level everyone should try to achieve quickly. Try to find someone near you who knows how to sharpen drills manually and get tought. It is not that complicated. If you want a drill sharpener that _works_, you would have to spend something starting at 500 BPL.

My tool-sharpener charges around 1 EUR (around 0.75 BPL) per drill, and the only ones he gets for sharpening are expensive production drills.

Nick

Already on it, Nick... have invited myself round to a local engineers to see him sharpening drills... :)

He will be happy if you grind his pile of dull drills. :-))

How I learned it: Instructor took me to the grinder with 3 drills. 3, 6 and 10mm. Showed me how to hold them, and what moves to make. Then he took me to the drill-press and demonstrated how nice and even they cut. Back on the grinder, he ground off the tip of all 3 drills. :-(( Handed them to me, watched me for 10 minutes desperately trying to get _some_ result and corrected me. The first drill took me about an hour to cut and make the instructor happy. YMMV

Nick

I think the irony of that remark passed overhead at about 14,000 feet

May I make some remarks on these simple drill jigs ? Well sod it I will anyway.

As an apprentice I was taught to grind drill by hand correctly, we started off with a large drill about 3/4" that you could hold and see, a piece of steel bar with a foot welded to it and a small centre on the foot about an inch from the bar and a stick of chalk.

We were shown how to achieve to correct angles by twisting and sweeping ones hands as you passed by / rotated the drill against the wheel. The jib was used by marking the bar with chalk, fitting the drill tang to the centre and scribing a line with one cutting edge. The drill was rotated 180 degrees and the second edge had to hit the same scratch mark.

Success, or rather lack of it was measured in how big your cauliflower ear was at the end of the day.

Once you had achieved notoriety on this drill you moved to smaller drills. The drill grinder sat in a corner unused and unloved and was for wimps, nancy boys and suits.

Now when you are working in an engineering shop it soon becomes second nature and it's not long before, with puffed up breast you are training the next set of lads and squashing ears all the while telling them the drill grinder is for puffs.

Now when you leave and go onto other things, often not even in the same trade, the constant use of this skill soon dies and after a while your attempts at grinding a new edge looks like a Irish navies impersonation of a road drill.

Now this is where we get back on topic and address the cheap drill grinding jigs. The action that these drills give to the drill is very close to the manual method taught thru the ages. I have found that if the drill grinding skills are getting rusty and you need a few attempts to get something close than a couple of drill ground on one of these cheap jigs gets the hand / eye co-ordination back into play.

I own a Brierley drill grinder that handles up to 1", I also own a small grinder that goes from ten thou up to 1/8", That baby cost nearly 8 grand new and they still make them but they are now about 14 grand !!

I also own one of these simple jigs.

They all have a place, day to day drills up to 1/2" are hand ground, above are done on the Brierley and the special small CNC drills are done on the Christian. A few times a year the simple jig comes out to get me back into the swing [ pun intended ], they are worth every penny.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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