Sharpening drill bits

[John Rudd]

A subject that has probably been discussed at great length before on here and other forums...

I decide it was time to sort something a little more permanent in terms of sharpening my own....Yes I was taught how to off hand grind up a drill bit, I wanted another approach that would give repeatable results and remove the guesswork.

Enter the Sealey SMS2008........
I got mine from a well known auction site for less than £60 inc delivery......after trying it out on some 'scrap' drill bits, time to get the good ones out and touch them up....

I now have a set of drills already to do some work.....

[sparky961]

How does this unit compare to the infamous "Drill Doctor"?

A while back I was strongly considering a DDX750 (the higher end model).  Though after reading about a lot of people saying there was a particular art to using the machine, I just improved my off-hand skills and learned to use a drill point gauge.  I've become quite good at hand sharpening drills in the range of about 0.250 and larger.  But alas, good is relative and I sometimes see one flute cutting more than the other and that sort of thing.  That, and the smaller ones are more difficult to sharpen well.  So I'd still consider an inexpensive unit that actually works well.  There's an amazing difference in the kind of work you can do with properly sharpened drill bits.

[John Rudd]

How does this unit compare to the infamous "Drill Doctor"?

I've no idea.....never used a drill doctor......

But the Sealey unit I've bought works well....So far I've sharpened a fair few HSS drills of varying sizes- 3 to 13mm.....without issue...
I'm quite happy with the unit....

[appletree]

Bought a drill doctor a couple of years back more for my son to use than anything else (never even powered up, after 40 years of sharpening by hand I still do just that. Its sub 3mm that are difficult but then  a box of those are not expensive 

[Lew_Merrick_PE]

I too have heard the horror stories about the Drill Doctor.  That said, I did some minor tool design work for them (Darex) about a decade ago and was paid with their (then) top of the line unit.  No, it is nowhere near as accurate a unit is my (model year 1963) Balanz unit.  But, it does do a respectable job sharpening bits from ø.090 (inch) to ø.625 (inch).  I often take it with me when visiting companies where I will be expected to use their (rarely sharp) drill bits.  I even use it to save time in my own shop where I only have a couple of drills that need a touch up as it takes me most of an hour to pull out and set-up my Balanz unit.  [My shop fits really nicely into 2500 ft² and it is currently crammed into 850 ft².]

[Jonny]

One thing i'll admit to not being that good at, often looked at various machines of that ilk the last 20 odd years, bought a few thrown them away.
Bottom line whichever one you use every single drill has to be specifically setup or waste loads, even drills of same size making them laborious to use. By the time setup each drill could have ground up 5 or more by hand, I tend to buy quality sub 3/16" rather than regrind by hand.
Other downsides they only handle from and to certain size and wont do morse taper.

Now if there was a fool proof, easy, quick to use method with decent stones I would make room for one.

[mexican jon]

I have a Quorn which I have a drill point sharpening jig for but it is to time consuming to use  What i also have is a Tormek with the DBS-22 drill sharpening attachment  It is really easy to use and doesn't take long to set up  it does all types of drills up to approx. 22mm  It also means that I have a very good sharpening station for everything else like knifes, scissors, chisels etc.

[Arbalist]

 I bought a box of 150 assorted drill bits from 1 - 6mm for £19.99. That's 13p a drill bit so not worth sharpening in my opinion. If someone brought out a decent machine to sharpen bits from say 5mm up to 19mm for a good price I'd get one PDQ.

[lordedmond]

I have the vertex one it also does a good job easy to set up once you know how


Arbalist whilst I agree with you as to the pric of you drill purchase making it expensive to sharpen them it is , but unless you have mor than one of each size then you are snookered if it's blunt/broken in the middle of a job , job stops until you get a new one , drilling a work hardening material you need to touch up the bit to maintain its cutting action

Just my take on it FWIW

Stuart

[krv3000]

 keep us informed as haw its preforming looks good

[mexican jon]

[PK]

I have a Drill doctor, It does a pretty good job on 3-12mm bits. I'm sure there are better results obtainable from other options (I also have a quorn casting set that I'll never use), but, for the cost and effort, I'm pretty happy with it...