Had to go look it up. Enjoy if you don't know this post.

Robert Bastow
What IS your problem Jim??

None whatever. Life's just grand.

Glad to hear it, last thing I want is, for what should be a
professional
discussion to get out of hand and start to spoil anyone's day!

The thrust of yourself, and other, even more supercilious and arrogant
posters has been that it is impossible to properly regrind a drill
without a slew of expensive equipment.

Here you are really off base, Robert. You mis-state my position
completely. Of course one can grind
a decent drill offhand.

Then I apologise Jim!!

SOMBODY said that and, in the convolutions of this thread I had come
to believe
it was you!

(trust me..if it gets any more convoluted I will be writing nasty
missives to
myself..and so will you!)

The task becomes more complex as the
size goes down, and at some point becomes impossible without
some extra magnification. 1/8 - sure, that's easy. But I would not
bother to do the ones in the 60 thru 80 index without some help.

No disagreement..unless you HAVE to! My point is that a lot of people
on this
list have only the option of tackling it with no help, no aids, no
skill and no
practice...or NOT DOING IT! What a tragic waste!

I can't be there to help them..but at least I can give them the
confidence to
TRY..knowing that it CAN be done, It has been done, and by golly, if
that old
fart teenut can do it SO CAN I!!

(Forgive me Jim..I am not SHOUTing..just putting emphasis on the key
points!)

Anyone who wants to learn this skill should start large - and I
mean 1/2 inch and above. This is a great way to make long drills
short.

I believe I learned on a 3/4" taper shank drill..it is a lot easier to
see all
the angles and begin to understand how they work and interact.

By the way..we had a handy little dohickey to help get the drill lips
level. I
have never heard it described before..

For the morse taper shank drills from 1/4" up to about 1" diameter, we
had a
piece of 2" by 1/8" hot rolled steel strap..about 14" long. One end
was bent at
right angles, about 2" from the end to form an L shape with one 12"
upright and
a 2" horizontal. In the geometric center of this short leg was afixed
a "dead"
center..not a lathe tailstock center!!...more like a 1/2" bolt, 1/2"
long,
turned or ground to a 60 deg point (Approx...no great precision
required) and
screwed in from the under side. Thats IT..toolmaking over!

In use the inner face of the upright was coated with whitewash (Never
SAW
marking blue 'til I got in the toolroom!) The drill was ground,
freehand, on
the FACE of the wheel (not the flat side)...care being taken to keep
the POINT
angle as equal as possible on both sides..I'll tell you how to do THAT
in a
moment..

Lets do that now in fact..

Jim, You are dead right about not being able to grind a drill without
mechanical
help! Well here's how you create your own "6 Million Dollar Bionic
Darex" ;^)

Let's assume we are going to sharpen a 3/8" diameter, 2MT shank
drill..it is
about 8" long (these figures are arbitrary..I just want every one to
have the
same mental picture of what I am describing.) We approach the wheel,
which has
been dressed on its face, dead straight across with no grooves..(Ve
SHOOT anyone
ve catch putting grooves in ze drill wheel!!..No Pity..No
Prisoners..Ya!
Verdampt!)

(Sorry)...

The drill shank is held firmly in the RIGHT hand...ALL the movement
and control
is imparted by the RIGHT hand. For the purposes of drill grinding, the
left hand
could be...with benefit..a LUMP OF CLAY!!

It is from this "lump of clay" that we fashion the Bionic Darex".

Place your left hand thumb and finger tips LIGHTLY together..Relax the
other
three fingers aand let them naturally curl against the palm of your
hand. Let
the drill flute drop into the vee between thumb and fore finger and
let the tip
of the finger "Find" the curve of the flute where it fits comfortably.
The tip
of the thumb rests on the sharp junction ot the land and the flute,
about an
inch back from the drill tip.

Now...SQUEEZE HARD!!! YOUCH!...I said it would be easier if it were
clay! 8^)
Lift the drill from your fingers...see the GROOVE?...Drop the drill
back in..it
locates within a thou or two! Magic?..Bionic at least! Squeeze again
to set the
groove. You have created a customised drill guide that fits better
that that on
any machine ever built! You can relax your grip now..feel how
smoothly the
drill will ride back and forth, guided by the groove you have created
for it.

Place the knuckles of your left hand, LIGHTLY on the ginding wheel
tool rest,
and swing the drill shank, from left to right (using ONLY your right
hand) and
push the drill lengthways though that groove in your fingers back or
forth using
the groove to make the drill twist or "rifle" in your fingers. Do NOT
move your
left hand in any way..it is made of clay remember!

UNTIL....

A) The drill axis is "eyeballed" to be at half the required point
angle to the
wheel face...You can scribe or chalk reference lines on your grinder
benchtop to
help you line this up..at least untill it become almost second nature.

B) The drill axis is dropped JUUUst below horizontal. This will
ensure that
your soon to be ground drill lip will start with a "smidgin" of
cutting
clearance.

(Ideally, and certainly for a beginner, the grinder rest should be
set dead
radially to the wheel center and about half the drill diameter below
the true
center of the wheel)

C) The two cutting edges of the drill..the straight, sharp bits,
formed by the
junction of the flute and the back face (the only bit you grind),
should be
horizontally disposed..with the edge uppermost on the side closest to
your left
hand..the othe sharp bit of course, pointing downwards (Jeeze this
would be a
lot easier with a sketch pad)

This I will call the SET or START position!

NOW, move your left hand for the first, last, and ONLY time during th
is whole
exercise. GENTLY ease the cutting edge towards the spinning wheel,
carefully
maintaining all the angles and orientations of the SET position..until
the
cutting edge is JUST shy of touching the wheel. If you listen
carefully you
will hear the tone of the entrained air, whistling through the
narrowing gap.
You will hear a subtle but distinct change of tone JUST, I mean
Just...a couple
tenths of a thou BEFORE the edge touches the wheel. STOP!!! FREEZE!!
DO NOT
MOVE!!

Now, press the knuckles of your lump of clay..sorry, your left hand
FIRMLY down
onto, into and around the grinding rest..establish a "Groove" on the
back of
your hand as well as between your fingers.

We are now ready to grind, Your left hand locked to the drill and
grinding rest
is otherwise quite relaxed..letting the drill slide, twist and tilt
wherever
your right hand and the groove in your fingers tell it to go.

The actual grinding is a bit of an anticlimax.

You have previously studied a new drill point, you have read about
clearance,
and cutting angles, and rakes and......

With the RIGHT hand in control, gently, kinda, lean forward... bending
or
squeezing your arms hands and body..rather than actually moving
them..untill you
take up that last couple of tenths and the wheel begins to cut. Let
it
cut..don't force it, and dont' rush it..it really won't hurt anything
if you
take a full minute Per pass per face. YOU and your "Bionic Darex" are
totally
in control of that drill and the wheel..Forget the times when, close
to panic,
you swung the drill wildly past the wheel, hoping to get "the dirty
deed" over
with as quickly as possible.

Take your time, enjoy the moment, THINK about the shape you are trying
to
generate. Just the one face is left to "Interpretation"...every other
aspect,angle, facet, what have you...Has ALREADY BEEN TAKEN CARE OF!!
and is
locked in place under your control!

The right hand should perform a "Lower Quadrant sweep" for want of a
better
term..An observer behind you would see your hand move from about 17
minutes past
the hour on a clock face, to roughly 25 minutes past. But it isn't a
smooth arc
of a circle, more a sector of an elipse..You see, as your hand starts
to drop
slowly, you are also rotating the drill in "the groove"..the first
third of the
turn needs to maintain that very slight clearance angle on the cutting
edge, and
not increase it too rapidly.

You need the clearance to cut..But too much at that point will WEAKEN
the edge,
and cause the drill to snatch and chip...So the first part of the
rotation is
ALMOST but not quite, just as though you were grinding a straight cone
point on
the end of your drill. Only as you approach the second third, does
your right
hand start to noticably drop..kinda "Catching Up" on the rotary
motion...increasing the clearance as it does.

In the last third of the rotaion the right hand drops quite
rapidly..Thogh not
enough to catch the OTHER drill lip on the wheel..that lip is coming
around
quite rapidly by now.

Above all, take your time, if it helps, move the drill one degree at a
time, and
think ahead what shape or angle the next degree of cutting face
needs...Remember, you have control, and IT ain't going nowhere 'til
you decide.

After a pass on one face, flip the drill in your "Bionic Darex" DO
NOT MOVE
THAT LEFT HAND!!, return to SET position and repeat, the pass on the
other face.

Having done a couple of passes on each face..it is now time to check
the results
on our homemade "Optical Comparator"

(Sorry Jim I couldn't resist!!) ;^)

Rest the center hole in back end of the drill shank, on the center
point of the
"Comparator" and use, first one and then the other drill lip to scribe
a light
line on your whitewashed (OK Blue or red dyed) surface.

You will readily see if the lines coincide..if the lips are even..or
not, as the
case may be.

Lets assume they are..Now look directly DOWN on the end of the drill
to check
the clearances. HUH? How can you check radial clearance by looking it
staight
in the face? Surely you need to look at it sideways?

Well no you don't...for once all thos interacting and confusing angle
and faces
and clearances are going to work together in YOUR favor and make what
could be a
tricky bit of metrology..quite simple. While we are looking at the
end of the
drill, we will also check that the POINT ANGLE is correct too!!!

(Ok guys, leave quietly..teenut has finally lost it!!)

No really, trust me. IF you look straight down on the point of a well
sharpened, standard drill, you will see
the two cutting edges, joined by the CHISEL edge which crosses over
the web of
the drill The angle fromed by the chisel edge to each cutting edge,
should be
ABOUT 50 deg...anywhere between 40 and sixty is ok for a first
attempt. (I can
hear the purists and theorists screaming and lighting up their flame
throwers)
But believe me, get it in that ball park and your drill will CUT. If
the angle
is too steep..you don't have enough clearance...negative clearance
will give you
an angle event greater than 90 deg. Too MUCH clerance and the angle
will appear
too shallow!

While looking at the end, check the point angle, How? Look down
the axis of
the drill at the cutting edges. Are they straight? If so, your point
is pretty
close to the right angle (As designed for that drill, by its
manufacturer when
he set the helix angle and the cross section of the flute) If the
edges appear
CONCAVE the point is too flat and if they appear CONVEX, the point is
too
"Pointy"

If your drill passes all these tests, which take but a second or two
to perform,
THEN IT WILL CUT..pretty close to size, without chattering, chipping,
overheating, wandering or seizing. I guarantee it!

Hey, thats a pretty good start for the first drill you ever ground!
All it
takes now is a bit of practice for it to become second nature and
almost as easy
with a little 'un or a big 'un!

Hey guys!

My apologies for "goin'on" but If it helps just one person to pluck up
the
couragre and go hand sharpen his (or Her) first drill, by hand...

Then I hope you will bear with me.

It is late, I am tired and I am not even going to proof or spell check
this,

'night all

teenut