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In article , "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:
" fired this volley
in news:7f8f7124-995a-4669-bf89-0877d8669306
:

Those drill sets are so cheap, it is not worth my time to inventory
drills, I just buy more sets.


I find the opposite. Those Chinalloy bits are so poorly made of such
a lousy alloy, and so badly ground, that they last about 1/10 the hole
depth of good American bits. They're also often not precisely of the
correct diameters.

I'd rather spend my money on bits I can periodically re-touch and have
them last years.

A while back, I bought one of the big drill sets on sale from Enco or
MSC. I got one with the combined letter, number & fractional drills. I
decided to get the middle-ground "no name" HSS american made set, as
opposed to the cheap import set, or the very expensive name-brand US set.

They are a mixed bag, but have served me very well. Some of the drills
have no size marking on them, some are nicely etched, and some are
stamped so deep I have to stone them to get them to run true. The one
rude surpise I got was with a number drill about 0.1" in diameter. I
chucked it up after checking the shank for severe stamping ridges, and
went to work. It just wouldn't cut, even in aluminum, and after a few
attempts, I took it out and examined the business end. The point was
ground "backwards", in that the heel was higher than the cutting edge
(negative lip angle)! Since then, I check the point of every bit before
I use it. So far that's the only one I've found. The steel seems to be
generally high quality, and there rest are all nice & sharp.

Doug White