Drill Bit Sharpener and Grinding Wheel Dresser

[bdentremont]

Working on the "A" has considerably increased my drilling and grinding of metal and is taking its toll on the drill bits and bench grinder wheel. I see a variety of different types of drill bit sharpeners and grinding wheel dressers available on the Internet, but have never used either. Does any body have any recommendations? These are obviously something I'd use occasionally; effectiveness and price are higher priorities than convenience.

 

[Gord. B by the bay]

In the auto storesand industrial supply places just the tool you need, the drill shatpener just one tool for drills from 1/8" upto 1/2" it will sharpen all. They also have grinding wheel dressers the most common and usful is with dresser wheels a total of 1-1/2" this is what I have in my shop for many years and a very useful the two tools would together cost about $125.
Trusting this will help
Gord. B by the Bay

 

[Art Bjornestad]

I bought a "Drill Doctor" a few years ago and ,for me, it does a great job. I have the middle priced one and it does 2 different drill face styles.

 

[SteveM]

I have the drill doctor, and it's done a good job for me. I think that if you read the instructions and watch the video, you can do a reasonable job. No illusions that it's a Darex.

As far as wheel dressers, the one that's a big stick, about 6" long and 1" square on the end does a good job. They are also cheap and last a long time. When the wheel gets dull, you want to expose fresh abrasive on the periphery of the wheel. Diamond dressers and the small boron nitride sticks can remove material from the wheel, but don't leave the wheel with sharp exposed edges of abrasive. The wheel won't cut as freely.

Steve

 

[MikeK]

I have a WWII vintage Farrel/Sellers with a diamond dresser, but rarely use it. It looks like this:

I only use it for hyper-critical jobs where I want to hold the point center runout to less than 0.001. I can thin the web and offhand grind bits 1/2 and under more accurately and faster than any of those junk drill-doctors.

The only adjustment cheap sharpeners give you is included point angle (118-135, etc.). Neither the lip clearance angle or chisel edge angle are adjustable, critical for customizing a drill for plastic, brass, aluminum, sheet metal, etc. You get what you pay for, and for a couple hundred bucks you are not paying for those drill geometry adjustments, nor the ability to thin webs, modify helix angles at the point, generate split or varied spiral points, or cut heel reliefs. Then again, most people have no clue about cutter geometry, and any sharp bit is better than a dull one.

 

[bdentremont]

Everyone: Thanks for the suggestions. It's nice to know that people have had success with the consumer-grade drill sharpeners, particularly for the sorts of loose tolerance work that I'm doing. It's also nice to know up front what the limitations are relative to good machine shop tools.

MikeK: That Farrel/Sellers is a beautiful machine. You've still prompted me to do some reading on drill geometry before I jump trying to sharpen anything. There is clearly more to it than I thought.