HSS Drills?

[Yorick]

It's hard to find decent steel drill bits over here. The missus is in UK so could get a set delivered to her to bring over.

Recommend me a good set?


Ta

[Skub]

Cobalt drill bits will go though most materials. We used a lot of Dormer stuff years ago.

[demographic]

I've used the Cobalt drill sets from Machine Mart for years now.
Use em on all sorts at work from wood through aluminium to stainless.
The set I have starts at 1mm and goes up in 0.5mm increments upto 13mm.
Most decent cordless normal chucks only open to 13mm anyway so bigger sized have to be stepped out from 13mm at the chuck to the flute size anyway.

They get some hammer on stainless and that shortens the life a lot but I'm not drilling stainless that often so I can take that. Were I to use a drill press more often I'd get better life still but I'm generally using a cordless so feed rate isn't so well controlled.


Actually, I've just remembered that I'll have to buy another set.
I got a load of tools nicked about a month ago when I put my van in for an MOT (it passed, phew) and I'd put whatever tools I thought I'd need for the day in my wifes car.
Left it in there overnight and in the morning was missing about two grands worth of gear. Dunno if I'd locked the car as there was no sign of break in but there were sightings of people using something like Flipper Zeros (electronic signal copying device) around the town that weekend so who knows. Gits.

[iansoady]

Totally agree re cobalt which I only discovered a year ago. The cheap ones from toolstation etc seem fine to me but that's in a home mechanic context not high volume production.

[porter_jamie]

so apparently YG make the best ones (much better than dormer) which is a hell of a recommendation. used them to drill out some exhaust manifold bolts on the 986 the other day, very good. my brother runs a cnc machine shop and he gets them from cutwel.

[ace llani]

I use Recol RTD cutting fluid when drilling or tapping - great stuff to help the job along and prolong the life of the cutting tool.
Had a bottle the size of a coffee mug and still going after years, worth a few quid.

[ace llani]

Back in my past life we used, and also sold Guhring (German) drill bits.
There and RTD - winner.