Problem using a drill bit sharpening attachment

[Dave C]

A few years ago I bought this Kalamazoo drill grinding attachment off eBay. I set it up, and for the life of me couldn't get it to work right. It went on the shelf until i decided that I needed to get it back out and figure it out. I spent half of today. monkeying with this thing, and have yet to produce a bit with the same shape on both sides. It will do one side perfect, and without changing anything but the drill orientation, the second side comes out with too little lip clearance. I tried several different bits, but got the same result on all of them. If anyone has experience with this contraption:
http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/4784/7263.pdf Your kind advice would be appreciated.

[ahidley]

If one side is good and the other is not, then the bit needs to be rotated alittle before it's clamped in the Chuck

[garyhlucas]

Generally if the two sides are different you are not getting the bit located against the stop pin on both sides the same way. Machines like the Darex hold the drill in a chuck and the chuck hits a stop pin which is easier to do.

[Paul Alciatore]

Sharpen them by hand. It is easier.

Start with a big one, like 1/2" or at least 3/8" and work your way down to the smaller sizes. For 1/8" or 1/16" and smaller, just buy packs of 10 and toss them when they are dull.

[Dave C]

I've been sharpening drill bits by hand since my dad taught me to do it when i was building my first Soap Box Derby Racer in 1954. I just saw the kalamazoo attachment on eBay and it looked like a quick way to sharpen a bunch of drills accurately. So far, not so much. I was hoping that someone on this forum had used one and would share the experience.

[radkins]

I have to consider myself an amateur machinist but even with two bit sharpeners (one being a Drill Doctor Lol, what a joke!) I find it much quicker and easier to sharpen by hand. I keep a drill gauge hanging by my small grinder that I keep only for tool sharpening and with that I can easily do a better and much faster job than the Drill Quack!

[oldtiffie]

Congratulations to all who for what ever reason/s now sharpen drills by hand - if you can't/don't do it already its well worth the effort to learn hand/manual sharpening.

Now all you have to do is to apply the same logic and effort to hand grinding lathe and fly-cutter cutting tools to get similar results on a plain old shop pedestal grinder.

This is not a criticism or adverse comment about drill and tool sharpening tools, jigs etc. I have some very good ones but never use them.

[10KPete]

And then there are those of use who learned drill and cutter grinding w/o benefit of fixtures and became expert at it.

And now no longer have the necessary motor control to do it without fixtures!!

Sure, a 'passable' drill or cutter point can usually be approximated. The the tremors don't allow enough control to get it
right unless the stars are in alignment.

Fixtures fill a real need even among those who can swagger about not needing them.

"Watch me, I can do this chainsaw stuff one handed."
"Watch me, I can do this stick welding reaching across the room with one hand."
"Grinder tool rest?? Who needs one."

Phooeey!

Pete

[Dave C]

I'm resurrecting this nearly 2 year old thread for a couple of reasons. First, because I opened a seldom used drawer and there lay the subject of the thread. It's been there untouched since the first posts which pretty much discouraged using it. Second, the last post from 10KPete pretty much nailed my situation, especially since I am now 2 years older and even less steady handed than before. So once again, I ask if anyone has had experience with the kalamazoo 2915 attachment.

[reggie_obe]

Do you have the setup gage described? Anyone else on VM have one of these that you could email? If the lips are unequal, it's got to be something in the setup and orientation of the lip as presented to the wheel.

[Robg]

Years ago I got a Black & Decker (I think) drill bit sharpener which has a chuck arrangement with a pointer to orient the lip of the bit. I tried sharpening with it at first to no avail until I paid closer attention to the initial orientation to the lip of the drill. Somehow I was off slightly ,not that much, and it either created an unusable cutting profile or a very good one. Needless to say, once I got the hang of the initial set-up all went well. So I think, Dave C, you need to really look closely to the initial set-up. Seems to me there are various forums or people out there that have posted improvements on the device and operating tips.
Try Googling "drill grinding attachment", I think Sears offered one and that may facilitate the search also. I have one of those and haven't set it up yet so maybe this is time to do so - once I work thru the backlog of to-do's I have.

[hermetic]

You might get some tips from this, I have a similar one, they are tricky to set up, toll you get used to it. Hope this helps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd9DRxl9wrE

[Illinoyance]

If you are getting unequal lips there are 3 likely causes:
1 The lips are not consistently contacting the stop pin
2 You are not advancing the micrometer screw to the same setting for the second flute.
3 The end stop is slipping, allowing the drill to slide back

I have good luck with mine on drills from 1/4 to 1/2. If I have a lot of material to take off the drill I go through the sharpening process twice. I only want to remove a tiny amount of material on the second grind.

On drills smaller than 1/4" I use a Chinese clone of the Deckel to do a 4 facet grind. For drills over 1/2" I go to the Lisle drill grinder.

[PStechPaul]

I'm happy with my $30 Drill Doctor XPK. Not the smoothest grind, but very sharp.

[J Tiers]

The Kalamazoo looks functionally equivalent to the Lisle, but adaptable to any grinder. The levers seem to do the same things, and there are basically the same set of adjustments.

I suppose that is not so surprising, since both do the same thing.