Twist Drill Sharpening Tips:

http://www.woodcraft.com/Articles/Ar...eId=267&page=1

Twist drills sharpened as shown will produce a "flat " clearance, making for a drill that grabs and drills aggressively.
Suggest using a "spade"type drill on holes 1/4" and larger(preferably with a spur point). This type of drill will not pull
itself through wood. fredsedno

Sharpening a twist drill is definitely an art. When I worked in a machine shop, my supervisor always asked me to do it for him because after 20 years, he STILL couldn't sharpen a drill properly

Then there is the Drill-Doctor to take all the guess work out of it.

Bedford

Sharpening twist drills is definately an"art". I had ladies sharpening drills less than .016 dia. under a microscope. For the casual drill user the drill dr. will suffice, barely.
Forty years in drill&cutter mfg. fredsedno

Sharpening drills less than .016 dia..............Just amazing!

If nothing else, I am a casual driller. You will never catch me in my shop with a coat and tie!

I accept your point and agree. It does work for me, thou probably not for my 0.016 bits.

Bedford

For most of us, buying a new set of drills every 10-20 years or so is cheaper than a Drill Dr. and amazingly better than buying a cheap chinese knock off.

After 25 years of being a professional mechanic, in both aviation and public transportation, I had obtained a lot of drill bits. I used to sharpen them by hand. As needed.

I saw the Drill Doctor, and thought "wow, that is neat" and bought one. I decided to sharpen all my drills and when I had counted them, I had over 300 twist drill bits. [X(]

The Drill Doctor made short work of it. It sharpens them just fine, thank you very much.

Ditto what KMOT said. I bougt a drill doctor to sharpen my most used sets. While getting all my drills sharpened was never the plan, the few I needed to sharpen constantly went so fast & acurate that I had to do them all. Like KMOT, I have over 300 drills as I was a mechanic for a school system for 30 yrs, & had a business at home that I also had just as many drills & sets. I got tired of taking it back & forth & not having it were I needed it, so 6 months later I bought second one for the home. When the first one was bought, (1996 or 97) I got an extra stone for it cause I didnt know how fast it would dull up. Well, both machines still have there original stones in them & they still work great. Sorry for sounding like a comercial for them, but they are great. No mess, no fuss, always on center, & sharp as new. Bill

lowes has a sale on the low end model of Drill DR for $50USD. I ordered one for my dad for fathers day... ill have to borrow it to sharpen my bits

Hope this isnt thread jacking,, but how do you sharpen wood spade bits??? Ihave a drawer full of dull rusted ones... i dont want to buy a new set.

Good tip and good question!

Like a few of the other guys I bought a Drill Doctora few years ago. I'm a gunsmith and machinist (Retired) who doesn't have that eye for sharpening drills. Some do, some don't. The Doctor really helped me.

Tom

Here it is:

http://workshopcompanion.com/KnowHow...Drill_Bits.htm

Twist drills that have the thinner web thickness at the point are less difficult to sharpen, you dont have to try to relieve the back of the flute help form a "centerless" tip and you reduce the chance of wiping out the other blade trying to sharpen.

The larger the web thickness, the more feed pressure you need for it to cut ~ if your not step drilling or using a pilot hole.

Thanks!

Hello out there, I am the Director of Marketing for Drill Doctor. Iam happy to see that so many people are getting good results using the Drill Doctor. For anyone having any trouble, please get in touch with us. Our Tech Support staff here in Oregon are eager to resolve any issues you might have. Furthermore, we are just a small family owned business so we will stand behind our products if something is wrong with them.

That being said, Aerofly, you asked about sharpening Spade Bits. As a matter of fact we just launched a new model Drill Doctor which can sharpen both twist and spade bits, here is a link to our site where you can check it out:

http://www.drilldoctor.com/product.asp?specific=153

Thanks for allowing me in to your thread, and please call us or email with any questions.
1-800-597-6170

I bought the base model for my Dad for fathers day.  Took us a little bit to figure it out, but boy does it get those bits sharp!!!