The MachinistPost Blog

Inconel, Hastelloy, Waspaloy — these materials push HSS drill life to its limits. Here is what changes.

Runout above 0.002 TIR quietly destroys drill life and hole quality. Here is how to find it and fix it.

Chips are data. Color, shape, length, and where they land all reveal what is happening at the cutting edge.

Two shops with identical HSS drills in the same material can get 3x different tool life. Here is the actual cause.

How to run a tool crib that maintains drill condition across shifts without the accountability gaps that kill tooling.

Why the first few holes after resharpening are the most vulnerable — and how to protect the fresh edge.

How to run a thorough year-end tool crib audit that reduces waste and improves tooling ROI.

A guide to the most common drilling workholding solutions and when each one is the right choice.

How to choose and set up the right workholding for drilling operations to prevent movement and injury.

How machine-ground Winslomatic geometry compares to hand-sharpened drills in real-world performance.

The most common causes of drill bit breakage and the parameter and setup changes that prevent them.

A decision framework for determining whether a worn drill should be resharpened or retired.

How to know when a drill bit has reached the end of its serviceable life and should be retired.

The signs that a drill needs more than a basic sharpen and what full reconditioning can restore.

The situations where flood coolant actually hurts drilling performance rather than helping it.

A plain-language explanation of what HSS drill resharpening involves and what it restores in a worn tool.

A practical drill inventory guide for part-time and weekend shop owners who need smart tooling on a budget.

A complete explanation of drill web thinning, why it is done, and how it changes cutting performance.

What causes drill drift, how it affects hole location, and the setup changes that eliminate it.

How to find the root cause of oversized drilled holes and correct it at the source.

Practical tool crib management strategies sized for small shops with limited staff and space.

The fundamentals of effective tool crib management for shops of every size.

Advanced tool crib management techniques for shops that have outgrown basic inventory tracking.

How to maximize HSS drill life when drilling titanium alloys with the right speeds, feeds, and coolant.