The MachinistPost Blog

An annealed HSS drill looks almost the same as a good one. It cuts soft for a few holes, then fails. Here is how to identify heat damage in the field and what causes it in the first place.

Carbide drills are more brittle than HSS. Runout that an HSS drill handles without complaint will crack a carbide drill at the cutting edge. Here are the TIR specs to hold and how to verify them before you cut.

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

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.

A practical guide to assessing drill bit condition and deciding when sharpening is overdue.

The signs, visual, audible, and tactile, that tell you a drill bit needs resharpening before it fails.

How to identify the source of drilling chatter and systematically eliminate it from your setup.

Reading the wear marks on a used drill to diagnose exactly what went wrong during the cut.

A practical guide to measuring drill runout accurately and the fixes that actually work.

How TIR affects hole diameter, position, and finish, and what acceptable runout limits look like.

Diagnosing and correcting excessive drill runout to stop oversized holes and premature tool wear.

The most common root causes behind drill failure and the corrective actions that actually fix them.

How to perform a root-cause failure analysis on a broken drill bit to prevent repeat failures.

How to read drill wear patterns to diagnose speed, feed, and geometry problems before tools fail.