Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Drill bits

Here's one for the shop and construction fields.

I work in a commercial glass shop.
We drill aluminum almost daily.
And into steel linals quite often.

What brand is the best? Sharpest the longest.
I really don't need sets. I have specific sizes that I use the most.

I don't mind spending the money for quality.
I like good quality tools but need to step it up on my drill bits.

Thanks in advance,

R.D.

Most decent drill sets will work fine in aluminum but they work much better with a good lubricant to combat "chip weld" on the cutting edges. Machinists have told me the best lube to use on your drill bits when drilling aluminum is WD40. Steel works best with a good sulphur based lube like Tap Magic or Rapid Tap . I accidentally ended up with some Rapid Tap that is in a wax based form. I found it works great for large holes and hole saws in metal. Stays on the cutter longer and lubes as well as the liquid based stuff.

If you're looking for high quality drill bits the best place you will find them in quantities is McMaster Carr for a respectable price and incredible service. Grainger is way over priced for their stuff and usually the service their sucks- at least in my experience over the years.

Norseman. Made in USA.

You can get individual sizes.

I second this ^^

kwg

I've been buying Norseman Viking indexes the last few years. Seem to be better than average.

I'd also tell you I have had great luck with using Irving Unibits. Don't know how they work as good as they do as long as they do.

I had to drill out a screw that held the shifter in on my 2003 GMC truck steering column, regular drills did not touch it, so went and bought some cobalt bits from home hardware, they cut through easily.

You're making a living with your tools, don't fool around get Norseman Cobalt....anything you drill into, they will take it and stay sharp. They peel a Cat gr 8 bolt like it was cheese.

There has been some evidence and online discussion that this may not be true. Letters to the company to confirm have gone unanswered. Look at the actual drill bits to see if they actually say "USA".

US marketing company, but...?

Sure you aren’t talking about DrillHog brand?

In the over 50 years I have been involved in the machine trades (got my journeyman tool and die maker papers 45 years ago) Cleveland has always been my go-to brand for drills. Today though, there are many good brands made in USA and most of them make good drills. I would hesitate to say that there is one best brand. That industry is highly evolved. High speed, high production CNC machining has driven that evolution. For what I assume your uses are you’d probably be well served by any of the good brands of ordinary, high-speed steel drills. What’s important is how they’re ground and how they’re run. If you want to optimize your drilling practices, you’ll want to study drill-point geometry a bit and have separate drills for steel and aluminum. If you don’t care to, the all-around drill point of 118 degrees will work fine. (I’m guessing that any steel you’re drilling is just low carbon, structural type of steel.)

What kills drills is excessive heat at the cutting edges (like any other machining tool.) If you have a situation where you can keep the drill points flooded with a coolant mix they will last much longer. It also helps to feed them as fast as possible given the material and speed you can run them, as long as you can keep them cool. Oils help, but a water-based coolant will do more good.

In aluminum, problems (so-called “chip weld”) are caused by inadequate cutting speed and feeds, just like turning aluminum on a lathe or milling it.

I mostly use Norseman but I really like these too. Not the best for every job but where they can be used I’ve been impressed. Not sure who makes them I know most tool trucks carry them now with their name on the box (Matco,cornwell, snap on etc)

Those are legit. I got the steel bits in the red case before they upgraded. I don't know if Astro or KnKut is the OEM on those. If you Google, Hyper Step Drill Bits, everyone is selling them now.

I run aluminum pretty fast and I like 137* split point drill bits. WD40 is a good coolant if you don't use water soluble oil for coolant.

Boy...they are sure brittle though.

Drill bits are a consumable. Don't overspend.

They’re pretty dang good. I had my doubts but my Matco dealer let us demo some for a week and I was sold.and they wanted over $400 for them. At the time Matco was under contract to sell them exclusively, i think it was for a year.

I’m sure you can get them cheaper now, and for what the OP described he would use them for I think they’re perfect. They’re lifetime warranty but not anything under 1/4” . But the small ones aren’t that expensive to replace

Now I am not so sure. Are they marked "USA"?

Carbide is where its at.

https://www.maritool.com/Cutting-Tools-Drills/c78_140/index.html

If you're mainly popping holes in aluminum, there's no need to go to anything super pricey. Just some descent HSS drills that are not titanium nitride coated so that you can regrind them and keep going. Cold welding is usually caused by too light of pressure on the drill with too high of drill or material rpm. Believe it or not, but isopropyl alcohol works great on titanium as a cutting fluid.

The 3 pc set of DrillHog unibit / step drills i have aren’t marked USA.

They’ve worked well for what I’ve used them for ( sheet metal and plastic) for the price.