Where to buy a set of stub drills?

How do you define best? Cheapest, highest quality, fastest delivery, greatest durability, nearest shop location, prettiest bimbo in the advertising?

Cliff Coggin.

How about the first 2, closely followed by the last ;-) A recommendation is always better than a jump in the dark.

Sounds ideal Leaving aside all flippancy, there is a serious point to be made here. What is good for one person who only wants a cheap tool because it will only be used once and does not require much accuracy, could well be greatly different for another who wants something for repeated use and/or great accuracy and therefore will likely pay much more for those qualitie. Alternatively, living as I do, ten miles from the nearest big town means I usually choose home delivery rather than travelling to a shop

Cliff.

In article , NoSpam writes

Dave,

If you insist on having a set, this one is top quality but rather expensive:

If you keep an aye on the J&L monthly flyers you might find them on special offer - I think I got mine for a lot less than £108!

If you are prepared, as I did, to buy the sizes you want over time as and when, then I find this supplier provides a good service and the prices are mostly very good (though with bizarre variations!):

Also, I built up most of my early collection from these people:

They used to be in Oxfordshire, but the business these under a similar name seems to be a DIY shop.

I think stub drills, especially in smaller sizes, are much under-rated, and it is annoying that no-one supplies comprehensive sets (like 1.0 -

6.0 x 0.1mm) of decent quality and reasonable price - dammit, there is less metal in them than the usual jobber length bits. I use them for most tapping holes below 6mm, and for anything where rigidity is desirable.

David

Thanks David, very useful. Do J&L have a website? (I looked but couldn't find it)

I would love to get some carbide stub drills in very small sizes, say 0.35 -

1.50 mm. I only need to drill holes 3 millimetres deep in hard steel, so the extra rigidity would save me breaking so many.

Cliff Coggin.

Dave, sorry, I should have been more careful. What used to be called "J&L" is now "MSC/J&L", and the above is their website.

David

In article , Cliff Coggin writes

Cliff,

I think you will find what you need on the Drill Service Horley website

- the second in my post.

David

That'll be the top URL of the three :-)

Mark Rand RTFM

Many thanks for the tip David. A pity they are only sold in sets of five, but I'll bite the bullet and buy a set as a trial.

Cliff. Cliff.

In article , David Littlewood writes

Dave,

Just found another source today while looking for something entirely different - isn't that often the way!

metric screw tapping and clearance sizes most of all so buy specific sizes. hth

Bob

from Millhill.