George Vondriska

Choosing The Right Drill Bit

George Vondriska
Duration:   9  mins

Description

If you use tools you understand the importance of choosing the right tool for the job. This is as important with drill bits as it is with any other tool. Let’s have a look at a variety of drill bits and what jobs they do best.

Tapered countersinks

When you’re pre-drilling for screws, tapered countersinks are the way to go. The tapered bit creates just the right hole for the screw’s threads and screw’s shank, in one pass. The countersink creates the required recess for the screw’s head. Add a stop collar and you’ll have perfect control of depth.

Drivers

It’s common to use cordless tools to drive screws and put nuts on bolts. You need high quality drivers for this or they won’t be able to withstand the torque exerted by the drill, especially when you’re using an impact driver.

Brad point bits

Brad point bits are a must-have for woodworking projects. With their distinct center point and cutting spurs you’ll get very clean holes, and it’s easy to locate the bit on a precise center point.

Boring bits

When you need to make a lot of holes fast, grab a boring bit. With their self-feeding tip they’ll punch through wood crazy fast. These bits are a great choice for construction projects where you’re drilling for plumbing and wiring.

Step drill

When you need to create holes in thin metal give a step drill a try. Need a small diameter hole? Stop at the first step. Large diameter hole? Walk it up to the largest step.

Forstner bits

Forstner bits work great for large diameter holes you need in your woodworking projects. They also allow you to drill overlapping holes, perfect for creating mortises on your drill press.

Twist bits

When you’re punching holes in thick metal, grab your twist bits. You’ll get the widest selection of bits by choosing a set that has fractional sizes, plus lettered and numbered bits.

More info

For more information on Grizzly products visit the company’s website.

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One Response to “Choosing The Right Drill Bit”

  1. Mark Evans

    why would anyone use an impact driver on a wood drawer? Especially after pre-drilling? The chances or over driving the screw is way too much. Also, the hole seemed so much deeper than the screw. Is there a rule for depth of hole drilled vs. length of screw?

If you work with tools, you certainly understand the importance of picking the right tool for the job. And that's what we wanna look at here is with this assortment of drill bits and drill accessories, wanna make sure that depending on what task you're trying to do, you're picking the right tool for that task. Grizzly has done a really good job lately of upping their game on quality of all their boring tools. So you're gonna see performance there in just a little bit of forner bits, brad points, twist bits, boring bits, step drills, counter sinks and drivers. A lot of cool stuff here. Let's punch some holes first bit we're gonna talk about is what you need. If you're gonna pre drill for a hole in your wood project. So there's a lot of stuff going on here. Look at these, these are tapered and the deal with the taper is that with a tapered bit, it matches the shape of the screw available in various sizes so you can match it to the number screw that you're using. In this case, this is a number eight. So one taper drill bit, two in one pass it's gonna drill a hole for the threads and the shank and it's gonna counter sink for the head. Now, the one that I've got in my drill, I have taken one step further and I've added a stop collar. So a couple of reasons we could do this one is we just want to control the depth of that counter sink. Two. If you're gonna plug the hole when you're done, then it's nice to have the stop collar on there to control the counter sink and counter bore depth so that the plug is a good fit. So when we're ready to use this, it's very easy with that tapered tip to get on your location. Then let's go to the next step, which is we want to drive a screw. So let's look at drivers. If you're using a bad quality driver on your stuff, especially if you're on an impact drill, you're gonna pay the price. The reason being that if you have poor quality drivers are not gonna be able to withstand the torque that gets exerted on a simple wood screw, it's not too bad. But if you're not assembling things at your shop, using a nut driver instead of a socket, you're missing out. So when we get this impact up against these sockets, that's where it really pays off to have good quality stuff. So same here. We've got our number eight inch and a half screw going into that tapered hole so to start out with here as it comes to screwing your projects together, tapered counter sync accompanied with the good quality driver. In order to drive the fastener, it's gonna make a big difference on your projects. More woodwork as it relates to drill bits or bits related to woodworking brad point. Bits are a must have if you're gonna punch holes in wood, got a bunch of stuff going on here, obviously a variety of sizes. So it matches your needs. Brad point. There's a very distinct center point and there are cutting spurs that create a really, really clean hole. So with that distinct center point, there are a few things going on in your projects. When you've created where the hole has to go, it makes it very easy to get the center of the bit at the center of the hole. The other thing that's cool and we're gonna use twist bits in just a little bit. And this is a place where these contrast with twist bits, if I need to come in at an angle rather than perpendicular, that Brad point allows me to do that because of the way it engages with the material. If you were trying to do something like this with a twist bit, it would have a tendency to skate across the surface of the wood. The other thing brad points are great for in wood is if we have to do an end bore and part of the benefit we get there comes back to those cutting spurs with the spurs, they're gonna cut their path when we don't have the point and we don't have those distinct spurs. There can be a tendency to follow the grain and red oak would be a great example of that. It's got spots where the grain is a little bit harder. The grain is a little bit softer and you don't want the drill bit to wander and find those soft spots. You want it to maintain the path you want. So again, a brad point on any kind of end boring like that, you might do that with a dialing jig is the best bit to use for that. So distinct center point offers you a variety of advantages when you wanna punch large holes in something like studs in your house because you're gonna run wiring or plumbing through there. Boring bits are the way to go with that tapered nose on there. It's gonna sell feed like this. No crazy fast, not the bit you wanna use on your fine woodworking. But when you're ready to make a lot of holes in a hurry, boring bits and a heavy drill are gonna do it for, you got a couple of new things going on here. One, if you're working with a drill that's got a quick release on it, you can get drill bits that have a heck shank so they pop right in and then of course, also pop right out without using a drill truck. The other thing that's neat here is if you have not yet seen a step drill in action, prepare to be amazed when you're drilling into thinner metal. A step drill is a great way to go. It's just what it sounds like the diameter changes as we come up. So as you're drilling the hole, you just stop where you need to stop for that particular size like this, it could be done right there. Or step drill is a great thing to have in your tool kit for when you come up against this kind of application for twist bits and forner bits. Let's have a look at what they can do over on the drill press with forester beds. We've got a bunch of things cooking here. We've got those cutting spurs on the outside, like we talked with bread points that makes these cut really, really well in wood. And they're gonna give you a really clean perimeter around that hole with these cutters. We're gonna get a flat bottom hole which is critical to a lot of applications. We have a very distinct center point. So that makes it easy to locate the bit on your work. One of the things I really like is that forner bits, unlike a lot of other drill bits allow you to drill overlapping holes. So application for that would be what we're doing here, which is a mortis. So start by defining the mortice top and bottom and then we'll do one hole at each line and then take the waste out of the middle a little bit of work with the hand chisel to clean up those remaining high spots. And you have a great mortis there. Twist bits are your way to go in order to drill metal like this piece of quarter inch plate. When you're looking for your twist bit set, you want to get one that's got inch sizes and also letters and numbers that's going to give you the greatest array of sizes. This is the way to go. We want to see those nice shavings that tells us that drill bit is sharp. When we started, I talked about picking the right tool for the job. You've got this huge array of bits to choose from. And as I mentioned earlier, Grizzlies done a good job of upping their game on bit quality here. So make sure next time you're punching holes, you're using the brad point or twist bit or forner bit or step drill that is best for the work.
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