James Krenov taught me to make wood boring drill bits

[Andy Dingley]

Good thing too. Regularly killing trees is an important part of maintaining forests.

[mac davis]

Fun book to browse and read... thanks, John..

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

[Vic Baron]

THANK YOU!

[fredfighter]

I thought you were too. Then I went to your website and didn;t see anything about drill bits.

That doesn't make your article spam, it does make it deceptive.

[fredfighter]

Well no one is compalining oabout that.

[fredfighter]

To be precise, he's promoting the give-away.

Actually, he promoted a method for making your own brad-point bits, but when I went to his site to read about I found nothing of the sort which I found to be very annoying as I was hoping to see how to make my own brad point bits.

He wasted my time, just like I'm wasting yours....

[fredfighter]

Nah, if you leave them alone they die just fine on their own. No need to kill the trees to 'maintain' the forest. Forests are a climax environment, they maintain on their own.

Of course if you want wood you need to kill the trees sooner befor they die on their own. I think that's what you mean, to _manage_ a tree farm for lumber you need to kill trees on a regular basis, right? A good thing too, because the better we are at managing tree farms the less demand there will be to kill forest trees for wood.

[J]

All spam is deceptive. The post was deceptive ... Socrates is immortal.

-j

[fredfighter]

Upon reviewing the original article, I have to conclude that was wrong to even say that it was deceptive. It is inaccurate of John to claim that he was 'thought he was talking about drill bits' inasmuch as the article discussed drill bits only as an way of introducing his book which was the real subject of his article. In fact, the original article was pretty straight- forward about that.

Digressing, spam is not spam by virtue of commercial, promotional, or deceptive intent. It is the volume, for example widespread or frequent posting or crossposting that makes spam spam.

Historically, advertisements have been discouraged in UseNet newsgroups, but that is different issue.

As to where we should draw the line here in rec.nahrm, I dunno.

It is generally acceptable to append a plug for one's product, cause, or free literature to an on-topic article. John's article started off that way but his discussion is pretty superficial. Had he given us a description of HOW to make a drill bit into a forstner bit and then appended his promotion of his free book the promotional content would have been better received I think..

I encourage John to post a detailed description of how to make the bits, and won't mind a bit if he includes a plug for his book, website, or business along with that useful information.

[J]

I agree. He should have just stated - "hey, I have a 9MB free PDF about building rocking horses" and left Krenov out of it.

I still want to know how he actually makes the brad point bit. Are there any tricks or do you just grind it down?

I don't think anyone here is against the distribution of free high quality information.

-j

[Andy Dingley]

Fair point if the forest is somehow preserved, but round here we're short of land. A forest that can justify itself as a tree factory can survive - something that's just "there" is likely to find itself getting houses built on it.

[Lobby Dosser]

PG 31 of the FREE BOOK.

But you didn't bother to read it. :o)

[Lobby Dosser]

Pg. 31 of his FREE BOOK.

>

[J]

I read it. There is a picture. There is no discussion of how.

-j

[fredfighter]

In most locales the city (if there is one) or county government can seize 'undeveloped' land under emminent domain and then re-sell it for 'developement' making it impossible to preserve. The simple fact that the land has been preserved is sufficient to legally condemn it.

[John]

Several of you asked for more details on how to machine a brad point on an ordinary twist drill. Krenov didn't elaborate, so I just experimented a bit. Being basically always in a hurry I opted to use my belt sander. High Speed Steel is very heat tolerant thankfully. I have a broad piece of 1/8 inch steel plate under the sanding belt of my 6 x 48 inch table mounted belt sander. I use the flat surface on either side of the belt for mounting jigs. The primary jig is used to sand the perfectly repeatable 45 degree chamfers on each edge of my toy building blocks. But thats another topic. I use the edge of the 80 grit belt for grinding the drill bits. (I really need some visual aids here) I hand hold the bit at an angle so that one of the sharp cutting edges is parallel to the surface of the belt. I lower the bit until it touches the steel plate beside the belt. I then slide the bit sideways into the moving belt, stopping the slide when there is a small unsanded point in the center of the bit. I then rotate the bit through about 45 degrees to sand the portion behind the cutting edge. Sorry, I don't know the vocabulary to describe the parts of a drill bit. I then repeat with the other side. I don't find that the angles here are critical. Actually I seem to reduce the cutting angles making for a less agressive cut. Works great in a drill press. Keeping both cutting edges perfectly matched sounds important and I do try, but not too obsessively. Practice on an old bit or two and you will get the hang of it. Its surprisingly easy. I even tried it on an 1/8 inch bit. Worked fine, though larger bits are easier. I can send pictures if you email a request. At the risk for sounding like a shop tool manual here is a warning. You have to get your eye down pretty close to the action. Lots of flying grit and metal particles are looking for eyeballs. Wear safety glasses or better yet a face shield. Also, be patient. Grinding too fast generates a lot of heat. Take your time. I think I can make the modification on a bit in about 2 minutes.

Most hardware stores have letter sized bits. Here is a quote from my dreaded book describing them.

The goal of my earlier post was to share a technique that has been useful to me (regrinding drill bits). Perhaps referring to my free book was clumsy or in bad taste. I thought the picture would be helpful and didn't know how to post one here. I will try to be more careful in the future. But, all this discussion has made me realize that the drill bit grinding page in my book needs more pictures and an expanded description. Thanks very much. I will take your advice. Please keep it coming. I hope every father, mother, grandfather or grandmother can leave an heirloom rocking horse behind.

Best of luck to you all,

John the toymaker

[e-mail]

[fredfighter]

Thanks.

I just bought a Ridgid belt sander. I'll have to try this out.