I have some good brad point drill bits, and some good forstners, and
tonight I finally got fed up with my cheap HF plain twist drills. So
I'm looking for some recommendations. Thought I'd ask here, as I know
several of you are knowledgeable in the machinist realm.
I'll start with some background: I have a 29pc TiN-coated set from HF,
which I got for ~$10. They've worked fine for drilling wood and
occasional thin metal, but I needed to drill several holes in metal
tonight, and killed 3 of the HF bits on what I thought was fairly mild
steel (I'm recycling an old metal bed frame for wood storage racks,
now that I have a home-made bed...) It definitely could have been my
technique that killed the bits, as I don't know much about
metalworking - I drilled 1/8" holes first, then 3/16" or 1/4", but the
bits only lasted maybe a half dozen holes, and then were totally shot
(or broken). Should I have used some sort of cooling fluid while
drilling through the ~1/8" thick angle iron that came with my
mattress? I assume that wasn't hardened steel or anything... I tried
spraying the bit and hole with WD-40 while drilling with the 1/4" bit,
but that didn't seem to help.
At any rate, I need to replace some twist drills, and I'd like some
decent ones (maybe $20-30 for a 14-16pc set? Is that reasonable?). A
set going up through 1/4" would be OK; 3/8 and/or 1/2 would be nice
too. I'm willing to put up with the HF set for the 64ths, so I don't
think I need another full 29pc set. Even a 5- or 7-pc set (maybe
1/8-3/8 by 16ths?) would be great, if such a thing exists outside of
the little B&D sets that come with cheap cordless drills.
Now for some questions: Is cobalt really an advantage for durability
if I'm not primarily drilling stainless steel and alloys? What about
titanium? Is black oxide HSS different than shiny HSS? So far I'm
considering Milwaukee and Dewalt sets from Amazon, and LV's "Triumph
HSS Twist Drills". I've looked through catalogs from KBC, Northern
Tool, and Grainger, but I can't tell what's really good quality and
what's overpriced HF-equivalent. (OK, I can guess the $300 sets are
better than HF's, but is it possible to get a decent small set of bits
for less than $40?)
Any other recommendations, either for drill bit sets or drilling
technique?
Many thanks,
Andy