DIY Step Drill - pleasantly surprised

Cushing H. said:
Or, you improvise and adapt and forge forward? Often “experience” allows you to work with what you have ... it does not force you to wait until you have what you think you must have
Click to expand...

Sure you can fiddle and screw up knives for a long time to gain the experience that you should do it right the first time and not risk the project.

Do you really want to risk experimenting on your knife that could damage it and take you even longer to fix it?

We are just talking about drilling holes, to tell you the truth if I could not drill a hole and then counter bore it perfectly I would practice on scrap until I could.

A step drill or a bit and end mill will give the very best consistent results
 
Adam - you and i are talking two very different things. I dont have an end mill, and i clearly do not have the same skill that you have to counterbore perfectly every time. So needed a step drill. I might have waited for one to arrive from a supplier, but i would have spent a lot of money, waited a lot of time, and still might have had a small size mis match between that purchased bit and my existing corbys (even though the nominal diameter was claimed to be the same).

so i thought i would at least try making my own. I tested it on several pieces of scrap wood varying from soft to hard before i let it anywhere near the handle scale for my knife in progress ... so that knife was never in jeopardy.

is the result the same or better or worse that a purchased step drill, or any of theclamp-and-drill techniques discussed above, or your results with your skill at perfectly counter boring a hole every time? We will never know. The only point i was trying to make in starting this thread is that i was pleasantly surprised at how easy/quick/inexpensive it was to make the bit, and that i was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked.
 
C Cushing H.

It is good it worked out for you, but others with less skill and experience may ruin several drill bits trying to make a step drill in an attempt at saving a few bucks or think their home made step drill is ok and it tears out material one day because it got dull and lost its hardness from grinding on it to make it.

Home made step drill- Good
Drill bit and end mill - better
Step drill made for corbies - Best.

BTW counter boring a hole not a skill. Anyone can do it if they follow proper set up.
 
AVigil said:
C Cushing H.
BTW counter boring a hole not a skill. Anyone can do it if they follow proper set up.
Click to expand...
Agreed - but it is simply a decision on my part, for various reasons, to not go the clamp/drill/change bit/drill approach. So a step drill of some sort it is.

The issue with tearout, i think, is an issue no matter how you go. Drill bits get dull. A bought step drill is no exception, and could cause problems downstream just as much as a “made” one. Learning how to sharpen a drill bit is probably a good skill for all of us to have.
 
I'm pretty sure everyone of us knifemakers will find a work around if we are in a timeline crunch. I'm also sure most of us will wait for mail to bring the proper tool (if we can't make one) when time or money is not an issue.
 
"Planning" is the take away from this thread....If you leave it to chance that you have all the "Correct" sizes and "Tools" you may discover you did not Plan for work stoppage before you started the project. Fortunately only "ONE" drill bit was sacrificed to build that step drill, And Fortunately you were not Miserably Disappointed by a failed DIY tool...you may not be as lucky next time.
 
Busto said:
"Planning" is the take away from this thread....If you leave it to chance that you have all the "Correct" sizes and "Tools" you may discover you did not Plan for work stoppage before you started the project. Fortunately only "ONE" drill bit was sacrificed to build that step drill, And Fortunately you were not Miserably Disappointed by a failed DIY tool...you may not be as lucky next time.
Click to expand...
Oh my ... we do indeed just have very different perspectives on this. There is a long standing train of thought out there (spanning business, engineering, science...) that one of the best ways to learn is to fail. Correct and go forward. That is in fact what led me to a career as an engineer: I took stuff apart to see how they worked. sometimes they broke - I still leaned how they worked and did not worry about it. My intent here was not to make a perfect tool on the first try ... it was simply to try it. Drill bits are cheap - that one cost me about $2. I even bought two in case I messed up the first one. I hardly feel like I sacrificed a drill bit. If it had not worked, I would have pulled out the second one and tried to modify the process. If that had not worked, I probably would have gotten on the computer and placed an order with a supplier. My pleasant surprise was that it was relatively easy to do (if you take it slowly and carefully and make a lot of use of the micrometer), and saved me something like $30 for the bought bit, plus $10-$15 for shipping.

You know ... take a look at that Walter Sorrells video i referenced at the start of this thread. At the beginning he STARTS OUT by saying that many people will say "THIS is the only way to do something" ... and he argues that that is not the case - rather that each individual can/should decide for themselves how to accomplish a goal. I happen to agree with Sorrells perspective - and I cant help but shake my head that a few of you are so intent on trying to make the case that somehow what I did is "wrong" or "mis-guided" ... even though it was pretty easy and apparently worked pretty well. I thank you for the entertainment on this saturday morning :)
 
Your perspective is kind of...surprising to me. You've mentioned/alluded to your experience in engineering/six sigma/process oriented endeavors. I would half expect to see Pareto charts on your shop walls highlighting cost and labor investments in various steps in knife making.

So, I understand the PDCA thinking. I also understand the not doing stuff because "we've always done it this way."

But I'd think you'd also appreciate not plowing the same ground again. So many people say the same thing because so many people have already tried the shortcuts, failed, and accepted that the better way was to just buy it.

Don't get me wrong, I like building my own stuff, too. It's part of the hobby. But something simple like counter bore cutters will set you back $75 for a few sizes, and the resultant time savings can be focused on refining your aesthetic, and not on trying to get an acceptable simple mechanical connection. :)
 
I don't need to look at some youtube video....I spent 30 years as a Machinist at a NASA facility and yes I also have an engineering degree to go along with my machinist background. I operate my personal machine shop doing contract work and know from experience that NOT having proper tooling inventory creates work stoppage which is detrimental to contract agreements. You can live by youtube examples, but are you willing to trust your work ethic to the "INTERNET"....:rolleyes:
 
tkroenlein said:
You've mentioned/alluded to your experience in engineering/six sigma/process oriented endeavors. I would half expect to see Pareto charts on your shop walls highlighting cost and labor investments in various steps in knife making.
Click to expand...
No alluding: I hold a Master Black Belt certification in Lean Six Sigma, Started doing quality analysis back in 1984, and have taught and mentored hundreds of younger engineers. Big Whoop. Big difference is that that stuff is specifically meant for production environments where you are (trying to) doing the same thing repeatably time and time again with relatively unskilled operators. It is not really applicable (for the most part) to small shops with small throughput, and certainly not applicable to an individual's shop, and most certainly not applicable to a hobbyists shop. I may be a nerd, but I am not THAT much of a nerd. Somewhere along the way I "got a life". :-)

tkroenlein said:
so many people have already tried the shortcuts, failed, and accepted that the better way was to just buy it
Click to expand...
I am confused you say this when my effort did not "fail"??? I do not really see a reasonable argument here to say that the "better way" is always to "just buy it". If I am able to judge the results, and monitor the widget for dulling over time and correct it (as an individual hobbyist or small maker), why is this "wrong"? As I said before, even the "bought" tools will dull over time, and might not hit the needed size by some number of mils...... Besides, from my perspective, I save a boat load of money, and still got reasonable results.

tkroenlein said:
the resultant time savings can be focused on refining your aesthetic, and not on trying to get an acceptable simple mechanical connection.
Click to expand...
The esthetics of the bolt placement in the handle turned out just fine - perpendicular orientation of all bolts to the handle, and acceptably tight fit into the hole in the handle.

Busto said:
I operate my personal machine shop doing contract work and know from experience that NOT having proper tooling inventory creates work stoppage which is detrimental to contract agreements
Click to expand...
Absolutely Agreed - IF someone is doing what you are doing. On the other hand, I have no contracts (other than wanting to get this particular knife finished in time for christmas), I am not making a profit to offset the cost of tooling (and so have incentive to reduce costs as appropriate and "safe", and it was FUN to try my hand at making this little tool. Surely there are others in the same basic situation, and it is then worth talking about reasonable optional approaches?
 
Cushing H. said:
. Besides, from my perspective, I save a boat load of money, and still got reasonable results.
Click to expand...
Spoken like a True Bean Counter...However with your Black Belt background and with an engineers salary I can't believe you would scrimp and try to save a dime to get only reasonable results.
 
Busto said:
Spoken like a True Bean Counter...However with your Black Belt background and with an engineers salary I can't believe you would scrimp and try to save a dime to get only reasonable results.
Click to expand...
I am from New England - frugality and all that. Sticks with you for a lifetime: Dont spend money you dont need to (but spend it on good stuff when you do need to). Besides, I am retired, so it does not hurt to save a buck here and there.

WHY are you guys so caught up on assuming the results are "Unacceptable" or "only reasonable"????? the results I got were just fine: nice concentric holes, perpendicular fit through both sides of the scale, nice clean tight fit into the outer holes with no gap between corbys and the handle material. I would not have posted the original note if the results were not more than acceptable.
 
You said..."and still got reasonable results"....Where I come from "If it ain't good enough for Government Work it ain't good enough". I'm retired for 10 years (closing in on 70:eek:) and you can't take it with you, AND it's nice to have GOOD TOOLS:D
 
One thing I have noticed, even with properly sized and exactly matching drill/counter bore and corby bolt, is that the holes in natural wood "close up" to a very tight fit. So, I have to run the bit in and out of the drilled hole multiple times to kind of burnish the bore or lightly sand the corby to facilitate installation. Sometimes a real challenge with the small ones, even without gloves on!
 
Busto said:
You said..."and still got reasonable results"....Where I come from "If it ain't good enough for Government Work it ain't good enough". I'm retired for 10 years (closing in on 70:eek:) and you can't take it with you, AND it's nice to have GOOD TOOLS
Click to expand...
Man ... you are drastically over-interpreting a few casual words. the results were perfect ... I could not have expected anything better ... I was amazed at just how beautifully the fit to the handle worked out. Does that help clarify?? :-)

Now then ... the thing about nice to have good tools??? True enough :-)

SS369 said:
I have to run the bit in and out of the drilled hole multiple times to kind of burnish the bore or lightly sand the corby to facilitate installation.
Click to expand...
This is pretty much exactly what I ran in to (had to lightly sand the Corbys when drilled into cocobolo ... whereas they fit perfectly in (test) holes drilled into black walnut.) My guess you could run into this with any purchased corbys/bought step drill. Machining parts does have some expected variation to it.
 
Cushing H. said:
I am from New England - frugality and all that. Sticks with you for a lifetime: Dont spend money you dont need to (but spend it on good stuff when you do need to). Besides, I am retired, so it does not hurt to save a buck here and there.

WHY are you guys so caught up on assuming the results are "Unacceptable" or "only reasonable"????? the results I got were just fine: nice concentric holes, perpendicular fit through both sides of the scale, nice clean tight fit into the outer holes with no gap between corbys and the handle material. I would not have posted the original note if the results were not more than acceptable.
Click to expand...
First,do you think that everybody will read your mile long posts :) I don t think , at least I don t read them .........Now on topic , you are working on knife with 500$ mammoth scale .Will you use your modified step drill on them ?I think that is what other member here want to say to you :)
 
If the Corby is oversize chuck it up in the drill press and touch it with a File or Sandpaper wrapped over the File or block of wood while its spinning.
 
Natlek said:
First,do you think that everybody will read your mile long posts :) I don t think , at least I don t read them .........Now on topic , you are working on knife with 500$ mammoth scale .Will you use your modified step drill on them ?I think that is what other member here want to say to you
Click to expand...
my posts not that long. others as long or longer.
$500 Mammoth scale (you mean tooth)? probably not. But I also would not use a purchased tool without checking it first.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top