Drill sharpening jigs

[Dan Green]

Hi all,

What's the best one out there currently? I'm finding grinding bits free hand is getting beyond me with my aging eyes and unsteady hands.

cheers, Dan.

[Brian Gaff]

I stopped when my eyesight got too bad. Not a good idea to attempt to sharpen your fingers. I think I need to find some reasonably priced good quality twist drills for use in general drilling, not wood bits or those posh hss with some very hard tips, jus run of the mill twist drills that don't bend or snap off at the slightest thing. Brian

[Tim Lamb]

In message [e-mail], Dan Green [e-mail] writes

Me too:-)

I first bought an attachment for a conventional bench top grinder. Very fiddly to use and still needs precise setting.

Drill bits up to 10mm, I now use a powered drill sharpener. Simply insert the bit into the appropriate socket and the machine does the job.

Lots available for £50 or so.

[TimW]

You can sharpen HSS twist bits of less than 10mm dia? I had no idea! When did this pass me by?

TW

[Tim Lamb]

I think mine is a Clarke CBS 16. No longer made but currently available. There is a more expensive version doing up to 13mm but it is the 3mm size I find difficult!

[SteveW]

I'll just buy some new ones when my 0.3mm drills go blunt - assuming that they last long enough, without breaking, to actually go blunt.

[Rob Morley]

Drill Doctor is the expensive name-brand range, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives that seem to work similarly but I doubt you'll find spares for those in a few years. I wouldn't bother with the cheapo drill-powered offerings, I have one of the jigs you use with a bench grinder but I'd have to find the instructions before I could use it again. Mostly I just do them by eye, with increasingly powerful reading glasses and an LED work light. Colouring the faces to be ground with marker pen helps to see which bits have been done, and which are to do.

[Animal]

If you can see well enough, using no jig is much better, it's possible to make bits cut way better than the standard twist drill bit. I find 2mm quite doable, though I use a simpler geometry for the litluns.

[Tim Lamb]

Next time you are in Hertfordshire I have a 60 year accumulation..

[Animal]

:) That sounds like what I bought a while back.