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The worn bit is lightly secured in the chuck. Alignment is achieved by inserting the chuck into the alignment guide until the bit seats against the drill stop, then the bit is secured in the chuck. The chuck and the guide offer variable alignment so you can adjust the chisel and relief angles of the bit to suit your needs. This lets you sharpen the bit for a more aggressive or more precise cut.
Putting The Bite In Bits
Take an informal poll and you’ll find that nearly every work area, tool box and garage has them—worn and chinked drill bits. Why do we keep them around when they’ve been rendered useless? That’s a whole other issue dealing with the peculiar psychosis of guys and why we can’t seem to throw any tool away, no matter how beat up and worthless it may be. Perhaps drill bits simply fall into the “I’ll Fix It Someday” category. Whatever the case, you’ve got them lying around taking up otherwise valuable space.
What say we put them to use?
Recently we got our paws on a clever device that whips old drill bits back in shape. It’s called the Drill Doctor, and it’s so cleverly designed that even the most fumble-fingered among us can turn a ragged-out drill bit into a wood-slicing, metal-carving, masonry-punching wonder in short order.
We tested the XP model. It’s compact, so it stores easily on a work bench or utility shelf, and plugs into any three-prong 120V outlet. Designed to sharpen bits from 3/32 to 1/2 inches, the XP can also refurbish bits up to 3/4 inches when used with an optional Large Bit Chuck. In addition to revitalizing standard bits, the XP will rework masonry bits as well.
We had a broad and diverse sampling of rotten drill bits in our possession—plenty to put our Drill Doctor XP through its paces. Some were merely dull and worn, others were deeply gouged across the cutting edges. By following the supplied instruction manual we had no problem putting a right proper edge and profile on all of them. We even tried the splitter function, and it worked like a charm.
Suffice to say, you’ll not find any drill bits in disrepair around our shop ever again.
—Rob Reaser