I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they all
had negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.
Moved lever "1" counterclockwise about 20 degrees and things got
better. Watched the video again. At the very end, it said, yup, if it
does a negative rake, that's the solution!
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? If I
live with that problem, then sharpening 135 degree bits and masonry bits
will always be a crap-shoot, too.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------

spaco wrote:

I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they all
had negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.
Moved lever "1" counterclockwise about 20 degrees and things got
better. Watched the video again. At the very end, it said, yup, if it
does a negative rake, that's the solution!
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? If I live
with that problem, then sharpening 135 degree bits and masonry bits will
always be a crap-shoot, too.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------

DDs were widely panned a few years ago, and Darex dropped them. Someone
continues to sell them. I saw a base model recently selling for $29. This wasn't
at a garage sale, it was an advertised price from a real vendor for a new,
warranted product.

GWE

The Darex M5 is a better way.

Bob Swinney
"spaco" wrote in message
...
I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they all had
negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.
Moved lever "1" counterclockwise about 20 degrees and things got better.
Watched the video again. At the very end, it said, yup, if it does a
negative rake, that's the solution!
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? If I live
with that problem, then sharpening 135 degree bits and masonry bits will
always be a crap-shoot, too.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------

Robert Swinney wrote:
Sure it is! But it cost like $1000 and now it's sadly discontinued as well after
a good long production run, maybe 20 years. Now they're going to more expensive
drill sharpeners, probably saturated their market with M5s. I have a nice one,
wish it had the super-expensive CZ wheels but the white ones work fine.

GWE

The Darex M5 is a better way.

Bob Swinney
"spaco" wrote in message
...

I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they all had
negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.
Moved lever "1" counterclockwise about 20 degrees and things got better.
Watched the video again. At the very end, it said, yup, if it does a
negative rake, that's the solution!
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? If I live
with that problem, then sharpening 135 degree bits and masonry bits will
always be a crap-shoot, too.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------

I had one of the darex M5 sharpeners but found a good deal on a black
diamond and a Listie. I was able to sell the darex for what I paid for the
2. The black diamond is great but is only good to 9/16, it will do all but
the smallest 2 number bits. The listie does a good job on the larger bits.
"Grant Erwin" wrote in message
...
Robert Swinney wrote:
Sure it is! But it cost like $1000 and now it's sadly discontinued as well
after a good long production run, maybe 20 years. Now they're going to
more expensive drill sharpeners, probably saturated their market with M5s.
I have a nice one, wish it had the super-expensive CZ wheels but the white
ones work fine.

GWE

The Darex M5 is a better way.

Bob Swinney
"spaco" wrote in message
...

I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they all
had negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.
Moved lever "1" counterclockwise about 20 degrees and things got
better. Watched the video again. At the very end, it said, yup, if it
does a negative rake, that's the solution!
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? If I live
with that problem, then sharpening 135 degree bits and masonry bits will
always be a crap-shoot, too.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------

spaco wrote:

I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they all
had negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.
Moved lever "1" counterclockwise about 20 degrees and things got
better. Watched the video again. At the very end, it said, yup, if it
does a negative rake, that's the solution!
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? If I
live with that problem, then sharpening 135 degree bits and masonry bits
will always be a crap-shoot, too.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------

Ran into the same problem on a friends DD.

As I recall, the work around was to watch the relationship between the
drill point and the cam, and mostly use the setting device as a
reference only for the length sticking out of the holder.

By turning the drill in small increments, you can get the DD to put the
rake on in the right direction. It's a PITA, though.

Cheers
Trevor Jones

"Trevor Jones" wrote in message
...
spaco wrote:

I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they all
had negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.
Moved lever "1" counterclockwise about 20 degrees and things got
better. Watched the video again. At the very end, it said, yup, if it
does a negative rake, that's the solution!
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? If I
live with that problem, then sharpening 135 degree bits and masonry bits
will always be a crap-shoot, too.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------

Ran into the same problem on a friends DD.

As I recall, the work around was to watch the relationship between the
drill point and the cam, and mostly use the setting device as a
reference only for the length sticking out of the holder.

By turning the drill in small increments, you can get the DD to put the
rake on in the right direction. It's a PITA, though.

Cheers
Trevor Jones


Yep, I had one that did the same thing. I found the work around was to throw
it in the trash, and go back to sharpening by hand. From what I've seen, you
gotta spend over $1,000 to get a drill sharpener that is better/faster than
doing it by hand.

Thanks for the input. At least I know that I'm not the only one with
the problem. This only came up because I temporarily lost my handle (my
skill) at hand sharpening. It finally hit me that the tool rest for the
right hand wheel of my bench grinder was 'way below centered, so my "2
finger" system wasn't working! I may fool around with the Darex some,
since I have gotten it out of the cabinet, but will probably still with
hand sharpening mostly.

Pete Stanaitis
-------------

Trevor Jones wrote:
spaco wrote:

I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they all
had negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.
Moved lever "1" counterclockwise about 20 degrees and things got
better. Watched the video again. At the very end, it said, yup, if it
does a negative rake, that's the solution!
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? If I
live with that problem, then sharpening 135 degree bits and masonry bits
will always be a crap-shoot, too.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------


Ran into the same problem on a friends DD.

As I recall, the work around was to watch the relationship between the
drill point and the cam, and mostly use the setting device as a
reference only for the length sticking out of the holder.

By turning the drill in small increments, you can get the DD to put the
rake on in the right direction. It's a PITA, though.

Cheers
Trevor Jones

I had this problem with the DD when I initially had it and was ****ed
off with the thing but with a bit of practice and learning the way it
works I now use it regularly and find it does a better job than I can do
freehand. Maybe I should practice more freehand then. I find that you
need to make sure the drill is twisted clockwise against the alignment
fingers in order to stop it giving negative rake. Now you have one I
would persevere a bit longer .

spaco wrote:

I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they
all had negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.
Moved lever "1" counterclockwise about 20 degrees and things got
better. Watched the video again. At the very end, it said, yup, if it
does a negative rake, that's the solution!
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? If I
live with that problem, then sharpening 135 degree bits and masonry
bits will always be a crap-shoot, too.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------

On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 15:20:36 -0600, spaco
wrote:

I have had a Darex Drill Doctor for some time and never used it until
yesterday. I watched the video, then went to the shop and read the
directions. Tried sarpening a couple of (118 degree) bits and they all
had negative rake. Read the manual again. No help.

Tweaking the rotational position of the bit in the collet is sometimes
necessary depending on the twist. If you look closely at the manual
(if it's like mine), there's an illustration showing how the trailing
corner of the drill face should line up with the center of the flat on
the collet. Since those two points are some distance apart, I scribed
an alignment mark on the nose of the collet to make line up easier.

Wayne

spaco wrote:

...
But, that is only a work-around. Isn't there a better way? ...

If you look up "drill doctor", author:engelhardt in the Google RCM
archives, you'll find a similar story.

Call whoever-is-Darex-now and talk to them. Have the model & serial
no's available. Mine did the negative rake thing and they replaced, as
it was part of a bad run. This one works good.

The thing about the DD is you will get symmetry, with both the length
and angle of the edges - it takes a bit of skill to do that free hand.


HTH,
Bob