Drill Doctor Precision Drill Bit Sharpener

[cmac2012]

Being semi-new to Mercedes (Mercs...Benzes?), it will be awhile before I have any good advice for all the experienced Mercedes mechanics out there. Instead of just trying to harangue people with my strident agit-prop, perhaps I can share my experience with a tool that some of you may have thought about buying.

The Drill Doctor drill bit sharpener may seem extraneous, I mean bits aren’t that expensive, but if you’ve ever been trying to finish a job either after hardware stores have closed or a long drive from one, and you discover that all of your ¼ inch bits are hopelessly dull, this little item could pay for about half of itself in one day. Whoever coined the phrase “a poor workman blames his tools” never tried to drill through ½ inch of steel with a dull bit. Then again, I think the essence of that saying is that a truly good workman will know how to make or at least maintain his tools. And so, in that spirit…

The makers of Drill Doctor make big, professional bit sharpeners as well, so they know these things. This model doesn’t look too heavy duty but it gets the job done. I could never quite justify the investment (about $150 though the price is going down) until I was installing a horizontal propane tank under my step van and needed to drill a 3/8 hole in the frame with only a few inches to do it in. I’ve got the Sioux close quarter drill (another nice tool) but I needed a bit that protruded from the chuck ½ inch or less. I couldn’t just cut the tip off and use that because I learned years ago that a 3 jaw chuck will not grip the fluted end and drill straight, at least on bigger bits.

I cut the bit so that I had some shank and maybe an inch of flutes. The flutes are shallower toward the shank side so it didn’t sharpen up in the normal way but I did manage to drill the hole in the frame.

I got the version with the ¾ and ½ inch chucks. A lot of the guys I work with have at least a few twist drill bits (as opposed to spade or forstner) between ½ and ¾ inch and they’re a lot more expensive than the smaller bits, so I especially wanted to be able to sharpen those. The 6 and 12 inch long bits are a bit steep as well and it’s a drag to throw those away when they’re dull.

It does split point and regular bits as well as carbide tipped concrete bits. It’s a bit of trick to get the split points right; a magnifying glass comes in handy, is almost essential actually. I can do a ¼ inch split point in maybe 3 to 5 minutes. At 2 to 3 bucks a pop, that’s around $30 an hour in savings – not too bad for part time work but the convenience of never being without sharp bits is the real benefit. Bits smaller than 3/16 are almost not worth doing, at least in split point, the other way works well enough.

The honing wheel is diamond encrusted – the bits don’t even get hot. I bought a spare wheel for around $20 and I haven’t needed it yet.

My Amazon stock is hurting, so give it go, won’t you. The basic unit is pretty weak, I’d go for the flagship model.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004U8PE/qid=1116559786/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1_etk-tools/103-5130462-5272615?v=glance&s=hi&n=228013