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HSS Drill Bit Hardness

I suppose the recent threads about making Oland tools and cutting HSS have motivated me toward some tool making and of course there always seems to be some question. :-)

I took a 12" long Irwin HSS drill bit and ground a skew shape on the end that normally goes in the drill. Then I mounted it in a scroll chuck and used the drilling end to bore a hole in a hardwood handle I'd turned. I left the drill in the same hole and had myself an nice round skew with an exposed shaft length of about 8 inches.

It sharpens and seems to work pretty good to me. When grinding I don't see many sparks at all but the ones I can see are the orange balls like with other HSS .

I wondering if anyone knows how drill bits are hardened. Are the bits or blanks hardened the whole length or just the end where the cutting spirals are ground? And is it possible to hardened or soften HSS with the processes used at home for carbon steel?

I'm also wanting to make a set of small hollowing tools for ornament size or smaller hollowing and I wonder how you go about bending HSS in a home workshop, if in fact you can. Or is it better to make miniature Land type tools for ornaments and miniatures?

I'll be looking at Darrell's web site and other web recourses, however any more help or ideas from those of you that are experienced in this area and have made these type of tools will be appreciated.

Bertie

Reply to
Bertie Pittman
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Bertie:

Not trying to be curt here, but there is a lot of info here on this group. Simply search the group via Google, with different word combinations in your questions and you will have more info than you can read.

Similarly, a long discussion just wrapped up on heat treating (annealing and hardening) of HSS on the Woodcentral forum, which is also searchable.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

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Bertie,

  1. Most small drills are hardened full length, but since you have one extra long, it may not be that way, or at least it may be tempered way back to reduce brittleness.
  2. It is possible to temper HSS at home but it requires MUCH higher temperatures, and generally is not feasible.
  3. You can make pretty good ornament tools from Allen wrenches embedded in a small handle, or HSS can be bent using a propane or MAPP torch.

Ken Moon Webberville, TX.

Reply to
Ken Moon

Enco sells drill rod of three kinds:

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Air, Water or Oil Hardening.

Hmm. Looking at the cost of 3/4" by 36" drill rod, I see

$9.09 Oil Hardening (Sale - was $16.79) $8.19 Water Hardening (Sale - was $12.28) $40.50 Air Hardening

I'm guessing your drill bit isn't air hardened.

Reply to
Bruce Barnett
  1. my understanding (and experience) is that the shaft on drills is generally not hardened so that the chuck can grab it better - not so on end mills though

  1. to bend HSS just heat with a torch, it will bend easily when it's a medium red color, even easier if orange - the trick is then to get it properly hardened again

  2. you can buy HSS rod of various types with various methods of hardening. I've even made a few tools out of old shock absorber shafts - not quite HSS but much harder than plain old soft steel (aka curtain rod, etc)

Bill

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Reply to
William B Noble (don't reply to this address)

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