And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Commercial shop here. The Darex consumer sharpener -Drill Doctor- is pretty good. Not as good as either a four facet grind or a good T&C grinder (which can sharpen flutes as well as ends), but for maintaining a set of 1/8" and up general purpose drills, OK. The trick is to USE it- keep your drills sharp, maintain the cutting edges, use the proper speeds & feeds and use cutting fluids appropriately.
And for what it's worth, plain old high speed steel if kept properly sharp and used correctly will do as well in home & hobby use as these expensive alloys. Sure, if you're doing production runs of hundreds of holes in alloy steels like A2, M42 or similar will be a better choice. For the occasional hole in a 2x4? Or angle iron? HSS will be just fine.
The best cutting lube is the one you have and USE. That said, Boelube is excellent; AnchorLube is water based and about as good, plus it cools better. And there are others- Relton A-9 original formula for aluminum, Tap Magic, Kool-Mist, soluble oil, or good old chlorosulfonated cutting oil, which is cheap and works great on mild steel, but good luck finding any. Or even water or Crisco. Cutting metal requires both cooling and lubrication. Do those two things with a sharp, correctly operated tool addressing a solidly mounted workpiece and you'll have no problems.
Besides good bits.... anyone use a Drill Doctor drill bit sharpener?
ReplyDeleteCommercial shop here. The Darex consumer sharpener -Drill Doctor- is pretty good. Not as good as either a four facet grind or a good T&C grinder (which can sharpen flutes as well as ends), but for maintaining a set of 1/8" and up general purpose drills, OK. The trick is to USE it- keep your drills sharp, maintain the cutting edges, use the proper speeds & feeds and use cutting fluids appropriately.
DeleteAnd for what it's worth, plain old high speed steel if kept properly sharp and used correctly will do as well in home & hobby use as these expensive alloys. Sure, if you're doing production runs of hundreds of holes in alloy steels like A2, M42 or similar will be a better choice. For the occasional hole in a 2x4? Or angle iron? HSS will be just fine.
If you are drilling metal use Boelube. It works better than cutting oil.
ReplyDeleteThe best cutting lube is the one you have and USE. That said, Boelube is excellent; AnchorLube is water based and about as good, plus it cools better. And there are others- Relton A-9 original formula for aluminum, Tap Magic, Kool-Mist, soluble oil, or good old chlorosulfonated cutting oil, which is cheap and works great on mild steel, but good luck finding any. Or even water or Crisco. Cutting metal requires both cooling and lubrication. Do those two things with a sharp, correctly operated tool addressing a solidly mounted workpiece and you'll have no problems.
ReplyDelete