DBS-22 sharpening hex shank bits

[Mark25]

Did quite a bit of searching and found nothing, any tricks/tips to sharpening hex shanked drills bits where the shank is larger than the bit? Have had hit miss results, thought of having a split collar machined that could clamp on the bit instead of the hex shanked.

Thanks, Mark

[RickKrung]

Did quite a bit of searching and found nothing, any tricks/tips to sharpening hex shanked drills bits where the shank is larger than the bit? Have had hit miss results, thought of having a split collar machined that could clamp on the bit instead of the hex shanked.

Thanks, Mark

I did just that, just not for the reason you describe.  I had a 3/4"" drill bit that were not held effectively, so I made a long, thin-walled spring collet.  Using something like this should work well for hex shanks, just keep all the apexes away from any splits. 

Notice that the spring collet is only slit all the way through once.  The other grooves are to improve flex in the stainless tube.  More flexible material, such as PVC may only require one slit and could be done with a hacksaw. 

Someone with a 3D printer could also make a collar with the hex shape included, although that might be overkill.  A friend did this for ER32 collets for holding bamboo fly rod sections in both hex and penta shapes. 

Rick

[RickKrung]

3D printed Hex ER32 collet.  For some reason, I couldn't load these images in the previous reply.