Setting up Craftsman Drill bit Sharpener

okay today we're going to look at sharpening drill bits um probably like many people out there i've collected many drill bits over the years my drill bits tend to get dull i've had mixed luck and trying to hand sharpen those drill bits but i generally go out and just buy the other set run them until they're they're dull and then um go from there so um investigating a couple different systems and there's a lot of systems out there but um my philosophy is keep it simple and so the one the one system that i wanted to investigate i've never used this this type of jig before but online reviews were good several people had good results with that what what i did after reading some of the reviews is i actually went on ebay and got uh this is an older one this one was actually uh like new fairly reasonable price um it appears to be well made and some of the comments is some of the newer ones have a hollow base this has a solid base which i really liked so um interesting jig there are a few other youtubers out there that have gone through this but what i'd like to do um with this is explain how to set this up and and explain why it works because it's a fairly unique uh system um i it works well once you get it set up right but um uh there are some compromises that we that we end up with so um first thing that you'll notice on this is it's adjustable for the angle so so this adjustment here um what it does is it it adjusts this angle here which we can with this tool right here we can measure that angle which is at 59 degrees so that's that's an important angle this is adjustable for some others i'm not going to get into detail as to uh what you would use those four different types of materials i'm going to focus mostly on steel mild steel type application okay so let's get started how do we how do we set this up well first thing you do is you need a grinder okay i've got uh i have this this old grinder that i bought at harbor freight it actually has been on the shelf for probably 20 years because although it seems like it's got enough power there is considerable amount of vibration involved in this grinder so i was never really happy with it but it seemed like maybe this is a good application for this to set up a dedicated workstation for sharpening uh drill bits so uh one thing i did on on this grinder and and uh you probably can see um i machined a uh a washer on the inside to help stabilize that the stamped steel washers tend to be uh pretty worthless um the other thing when you're when you're looking at um uh grinding wheels for this so i went ahead and i i got a 100 grit uh norton wheel which seems to be the right grip for sharpening these drill bits real happy with that but a lot of these grinding wheels come with this universal bushing set and if you look at it it's it's a little bit floppy to say the least so um first thing i'd recommend is when you get the um the grinding wheel is take this and just throw it away they're worthless so what i what i did do is and um i i realized not everybody has a metal lathe but i went ahead i took some aluminum and i machined a bushing that fits snug in the grinding wheel and uh board the hole so that it fits snugly on the shaft um in doing so uh what i ended up with is a true running grinding wheel and i i almost eliminated all the vibrations so uh real happy with this right now i think it's gonna work really well for us and so let's uh let's go ahead and uh set this up so um i know some would some would say don't don't ever grind on the side of a grinding wheel uh they're really designed for the front but keep in mind that when we're grinding these these drill bits that we're we're taking off a very small amount and so um uh i'm not i'm not that worried about it um i think i think it'll work well but um we'll get into how to how to grind this a little bit later so so the first thing you want to do is you want to um uh figure out how to position this um this jig relative to the uh to the granule um the recommendation and and you can see that the the drill bit here is going to be higher than the center of this so the first thing you want to do is uh make sure that this this grinder is at the right level so to do that what i'll what i'll do is i'll take and shim that up with another piece of three-quarter inch plywood so i've got two pieces of three-quarter inch plywood i'm gonna i'm gonna set the um grinder here and you can see given that it's looking pretty good so um the other thing you want to do is you want to uh set this this so that um when you put a drill bit in there so let's go ahead we'll put a we'll put a drill bit in here okay so this is when we when we strike the arc and this will be how we um sharpen it that we're staying within an active area of the um the grinding wheel okay so that's um that looks about right right there so we'll go ahead we'll we'll bolt that down let me let me uh before we bolt that down let me talk a little bit about why this why this system even works there there's a couple important things with with this jig that we need to know one is a lot of the reason it works is this when when we set the drill bit into this this jig and let's see if you can you can see that the the jig is actually offset so that this drill bit is not at the axis of pivot it's actually off to the side and that's a critical element um but i i think and i and i don't know the actual design of this um obviously whoever designed this jig is is very uh very smart guy but i suspect that um that this offset is a compromise this jig is designed for uh drill bits and i've had success down to about 3 16 when you get a little bit smaller uh we get into problems but um and i've gone up as as high as 5 8 of an inch it probably would have handled three-quarter but i would guess that this offset on this uh this pivot probably if you wanted to be real accurate you'd probably change that based on the drill bit size but uh i think with the the proper adjustment on this that um we can get good results for a broad range of drill bits um the other the other thing that's very critical um actually more so critical on on this jig is um what i'm going to call this the stick out of the drill bit okay so you've got you've got a little a little uh it's a guide here that sticks out and so the way this the way this is gonna work is um you put the drill bit in and then you make sure that that the drill bit rests up against that that little stop and then you can tighten that down so the um and we'll get into this a little bit later but um this the stick out how much that drill bit sticks out from the edge of that stop is is critical and it's critical in in um uh in the uh the angle the um the basically the back angle and we'll we'll look at that a little bit on a drill bit um so you've got so we we talked about this angle and that angle is adjusted by the jig right here but the but this angle here which is the back angle that angle is actually adjusted by the amount of stick out so so the um the more that that that drill bit sticks out from the stop the greater this angle is going to be okay so the so the recommendation at least what i've read is that that angle should be about uh five to eight degrees uh relief back angle and so if we uh let's take a look at this one and see um this is this is this is a little bit tricky getting this but um i'm showing this this drill bit here that bank angle is about um six degrees so that that seems about right to me um and this this drill bit actually cuts pretty good so um so just a couple um a couple things about how this works there's a there's a couple very critical um uh settings on here and and we're gonna uh go into that okay so um so we've got our grinder set up we've got the new wheel the wheel is balanced we've got our approximate location of the jig now now keep in mind when when we talk about stick out on the drill bit we'll we'll adjust that uh here and then we'll need to move the jig in and out so that you you get to a point where you're actually grinding on that jig so so that's why this this jig has a slot in the bottom and and that's important because when we clamp it down this is gonna move uh in and out and and actually and what we'll show is that that that movement is uh can be fairly slight but it can make a huge difference on that uh that relief angle on the tip of the drill bit so okay so i've gone ahead i've i've mounted the um the grinder down and and i actually use these uh t-nuts so that um and the t-nuts came in from the the underside of this piece of plywood here so what that allows me to do is to uh bolt it from the top so you can see i've got my bolts in here and then um the other thing i i recommend that you do is once you get your grinder bolted down mark the corners very well because what you're going to see is that if you have to remove this grinder after you start setting up your system you need to get this grinder in the exact same location as you had before every little bit uh matters on this so i've got the grinder in i'm gonna go ahead and just turn it on so you can see that with that that bushing in that grinder it actually runs very nicely happy with that okay so next we will mount the uh the chick and so again i i put a t-nut from down below here so that this will tighten down onto the jig and then the other thing i did is i i um stapled a piece of a wood here and and the intent of that is to um uh when i'm sliding the jig back and forth it keeps it uh in line and that's um not so critical for the jig itself but but it is critical in it and i'm going to show how to uh calibrate this for calibration this is very critical okay i'm going to go ahead and i'm going to bolt this down but before i did that i went ahead and i made two marks on the base i used the file triangular file and then i i just put a little uh blue ink in there just to highlight that a little bit and i'll i'll show you what that's for but it doesn't it's not critical where those two are they just need to be uh separated by a small distance okay let's go ahead i'm gonna bolt this this on okay we're we're ready to um bolt this on here one thing you do need to do is determine uh the distance of this jig from the face of the grinding wheel so i took a a square squared it up put my mark on the plywood in this case um i didn't line up the edge of this plywood with the face of that you don't need to but you just need to uh make a mark where the face of this is what i what i determine is that the um the best distance from the face to the bolt hole here is two and one quarter inches so two and two and a quarter inches from this to um the center of that bolt hole so measure off the face of that uh two and a quarter inches uh again i used a t-nut so i put a t-nut in from the from the bottom side so here's the t-nut and that makes that's going to make our adjustments uh a lot easier okay so let's go ahead we'll bolt this onto the base okay we'll we'll check it looks that part's looking really good so um so the question comes in how far does this drill bit stick out from the the guide to get that the correct angle on your your relief your back angle of uh let's say five to eight degrees um there's you can you can go in and there's some calculations you can do and i've i've done those but um to be honest it's it's um it's just approximation so so here's um here's what what i've uh found in playing around with this as far as that stick out the the stick out itself is not it is critical but keep in mind that no drill bit is made the same and so when when you talk about stick out um this this drill bit as you stick it out is going to turn okay so you so this would be the stop on the jig as you as you push it out it turns and what what that does is if you're if you're flush if you're flush with with that stop this this cutting edge is going to be straight up and down okay and as you push this drill bit out away from that and it twists you see that what happens is you put it you put an angle on that that cutting edge relative to the jig and actually that angle is the mo is the more critical measurement versus versus the actual distance of the stick out and and the reason for that is um when you when you're sticking when you're running this out and again you run it out at the drill bits twisting you can see that drill bits have a different rate of twist and and i don't know if there's a standard on what they're supposed to be but but that's the truth so so this one with the with more twist means that that that cutting angle is going to have more of more of an angle to the perpendicular as i start to twist it out that's in a bit let's say like this which has less of a twist okay so a good starting point um for this is uh you you definitely want the the drill bit um this this cutting angle a good starting point is about uh five to ten degrees so i'm going to go ahead i'm going to set this up at 5 to 10 degrees i'm going to tighten this up and then you can see what the the stick out looks like on this this is a 7 16 inch drill bit so we're going to start with that okay so um what i'll do is uh i'll just put this back in here tighten it down okay and then go ahead this this uh needs to be tightened and one thing um i found is that that this probably should be a wing nut here i think i'll go ahead and change it out with a wing nut because it sometimes this i can't get that tight enough and this will slide down okay so i've got the i've got the drill bit in there um it's i've i've roughed in the the stick out here and we'll be able to tell if that worked or not um once we start sharpening i'm gonna this is tight i'm gonna snug this up a little bit right here um this is tight and then what i'm going to do is i'm just going to move okay i'm just going to move the base until i'm just touching okay so again that's a that's a very rough um adjustment like i need to move it just to squish more there we go all right let's go ahead um let's sharpen this drill bit and we'll see how that angle turned out so very light passes [Applause] okay we'll go ahead and flip that around so this will be the opposite side again we uh you give it a little bit of a twist so it touches that and then tighten it down and [Music] [Music] okay so in this case i'm gonna i'm gonna need to just run that stick out just a little more here we go [Applause] [Music] we'll go ahead just to make sure it's balanced on both sides i'm going to flip it over again make sure i'm on that stop yeah let's see how we did okay so it it um uh it looks like it it ground that face pretty nice uh one thing i i don't like about this is the intersection of the uh the two ground faces is at more of an angle this should be closer to uh 90 degrees so that that would make for a very aggressive edge for drilling so um i can check it with my my measuring tool and it looks like it looks like i'm about um i'm probably about eight degrees which which isn't bad that's that's pretty close it could be it could be a little bit better i think what i'll do is um uh i'll go ahead and i'll i'll redo this um and move it just a little bit closer so what we'll do is we'll this would be uh this would be a good um i think one of the additions i'll do on this uh later is a screw adjustment move it in and out because uh it it doesn't take much adjustment at all so now that i've moved this jig closer i need to back my bit up a little bit okay let's go ahead and let's try that [Applause] again flip it around make sure it's up against that [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] stuff see how we did okay so um if we look at if we look at that angle um so keep in mind what i did is i moved this jig farther in uh and actually uh what that did by moving that jig closer it didn't it actually increased my angle um this this relief angle and that that was the that was the wrong direction i wanted to go i actually wanted to reduce that angle so so i'm going to go ahead [Music] i'm just going to put a little mark here and i'll move this back out just a little bit probably maybe a sixteenth of an inch maybe a little less and i'll run my drill bit out [Music] okay flip that around make sure it's up against that stock okay keep in mind that that that this jig is it's it's rigid enough to do the job but it's not really super rigid so depending on how you grab this you can actually bend that a little bit and so the key here is you want to grab it gingerly as you as you make your swing so let's let's take a look at that actually that's that's looking pretty good um i'm pretty happy with that um i'm at about six degrees on that and so uh what i did is i went ahead uh with these two marks go ahead mark that and it doesn't matter which one but what you'll do is you'll stagger uh going back and forth between these and i'm going to mark that 7 16. so so i've got a mark i've got that at 7 16 so when i when i go to sharpen another 7 16 bit i can set it on here and it's going to get me really close i might have to fine-tune this a little bit uh to do the final but um that's going to get me within the ballpark okay so let's go ahead let's take a smaller bit here's a quarter inch bit i'm gonna go ahead i'm gonna clamp this in and i'm gonna go ahead and just look at that the the cutting face get it about um five degrees from there clamp that down and adjust the stop okay give it just a little bit of snug and i'm and then i'm going to need to to move this in but uh before i do that um this this makes me a little bit nervous i've got this this grinding wheel that's spinning here um and you saw me and hopefully you cringed a little bit when i was changing the bits here this is spinning um uh that that's i i don't like that so uh what i did is i happen to have some stainless steel and so what i did is i went ahead and i made uh i bent the guard and so this uh this guard will do a couple things one is it'll save your knuckles from uh go ahead i'll take this off so i can get to that again i um i used some t-nuts half-inch bolts to bolt this down go ahead and thread this on okay now we've got the guard on that makes me feel much better you can see the guard um actually outside the wheel does a couple things it keeps me from grinding my knuckle but also if there's any issues with this wheel and it starts to come apart this is going to uh help protect me as the operator okay let's go ahead let's put our our jig back on and keep in mind that we've we've already made one mark for 7 16 here so so if i wanted to do a 7 16 inch drill bit i can i can go right to that setting clamp this down put the drill bit in and adjust the drill bit so that it barely touches the wheel and then i can do my sharpening um what what i'm going to do is i'm going to build a scale here for different size drill bits so that any drill bit i can take i can get the adjustment here which is pretty critical within the ballpark okay so that's what we're gonna do we've got a quarter inch bit i i estimated my stick out on that what i'll do is i'll move the jig in until until it just touches so there it's touching okay we'll go ahead and tighten that up okay it's just touching there so let's go ahead okay i think i'm gonna need to i'm just gonna move that out just just a little bit okay and go ahead and flip this around 180 degrees um it's setting against that stop it's also setting against the bottom i tighten that up [Music] okay looks like this drill bit wasn't sharp and very well to start with it wasn't balanced so i'm gonna go and move it out just a little bit [Music] go ahead clean up the other side [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay see how that did okay take my measurement it looks like i'm at actually about um five degrees that's looking good i look at the um the intersection of the two ground faces that's almost 90 degrees that's looking really good and uh it looks like just looking at the drill bit it looks like it's balanced so um i'm going to go ahead come down here [Music] and i'm going to go to this other mark and i'm going to mark this and i'm going to go one quarter inch okay so now i've got um i've got uh initial setting for quarter inch bits i've got an initial setting for 7 16 and so um uh what i'll do is i'll i'll fill in the gap between those but um if you if you look at um the difference between quarter and seven sixteenths we're we're only talking about three sixteenths of an inch in movement uh in that um that base so really there's not a lot of movement and this is the reason i put two marks because i'll stagger the settings back and forth and so that uh i'll get a full range so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna go through that with everybody i went ahead um i went ahead and i did that already so i'm gonna i'm gonna show you what that looks like okay so here's so here's what um what that looks like after i went ahead and i calibrated this unit so i've got my 1 8 3 8 7 16 3 16 5 16 and 5 8 and uh what that does that gets again it gets you in the ballpark so if i go to do a 5 8 inch bit i can i can move this out the 5 8 tighten this up i take my drill bit and i put it in here and move it out until it touches the grind wheel snug up the base and then go ahead sharpen that on both sides flip it around sharpen it check your angle you should be pretty close you might have to make very minor adjustments to here but this is going to get you in the ballpark so so bottom line on this on this jig this is uh again this was this was an older version of this craftsman 667 very happy with how this works a little bit of finesse and getting this adjusted right uh getting this set up uh now that i've got it set up i can sharpen all my bits fairly quickly and um get some very good results in here and it's uh very good and it's a pleasure having sharp drill bits uh once again so that's it good luck

Channel: Hanson Electric

Views: 12,366

Rating: 4.6666665 out of 5

Keywords: drill, drill bits, sharpening, sharpening jig, grinder, Hanson Electric

Id: 6HNGKArffhU

Length: 38min 50sec (2330 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021