Drill bit sharpening advice

[Elite Edge]

Good morning all, hope you are having an awesome day.
Please, may I ask for some info from those who have had some experience in this
I have been asked to quote on the sharpening of 8mm steel drill bits with a volume of 100 to 150 per batch.
My question is: What is the average time that you have noted per bit? 
I am concerned that the Tormek drill bit jig is a bit time-consuming to get through all of the work in time
Many thanks
Travis

[RickKrung]

Not sure I'd go for that job.  Much depends on your setup and experience.  What equipment do you have?  Do you already have the drill bit sharpening jig and have you used it?  What grinding wheels do you have?  Just the standard SG-250?  SB-250?  Any diamond or CBN wheels?  How many drill bits have you sharpened? 

If you had the jig and had sharpened a few drill bits with the equipment you have, I's suspect you already have a good sense of the task. 

The standard SG wheel is really not adequate for the task. Most decent drill bits are High Speed Steel (HSS).  Tormek came out with the SB wheel specifically for the task of sharpening HSS because the SG won't "cut it".  I found the SB wheel wasn't agressive enough and went searching for be other alternatives.  I went through several, including Tormek diamond wheels (DC), 180 CBN grit, standard bench grinding wheel fitted to the Tormek and running in water (T8), slow speed bench grinder fitted with Tormek tool rests/jig, variable speed belt grinder fitted with Tormek tool rests/jig.  My last acquisition is a 250mm diameter, 80 grit CBN wheel on the T8.  This last one appears to be aggressive enough, but I haven't tried it with drill bits yet (worked great on plane blades). 

Even so, I think the Tormek may be too slow for this sort of volume task.  I think a better alternative would be something like the Vevor MR-13 A or B sharpener, depending on if you want to be able to web-thin (A model) or split-point (B Model).  About the same price range as the Tormek drill bit jig (if you don't have it yet) but way faster, particularly for volume work.   

The grind finish is not nearly as nice as factory or what can be achieved with a full suite of Tormek wheels, but adequate.  It is most effective at rapid metal removal (something the Tormek is weak on) and I suspect given the quantity you're looking at, many of the bits will be burned/chipped/broken and require a lot of metal removal. I use the Vevor Model B for roughing bits and finish them on the Tormek, but I doubt I'd try doing that for such a large quantity of bits as you are looking at. 

You are on this forum and there is a drill bit sharpening specific subforum, so go there and do a bunch of reading about what others have experienced.  I've posted a bunch there.  Also, there are several discussions on metal machining forum and quite a few YouTube videos reviewing drill bit sharpening like the Vevor. 

Alan Holtham does an excellent job demonstrating how the Tormek jig works here, but that is not the whole story.  Mr. Pete does a great job demonstrating the Vevor sharpeners, Model A and Model B.

Rick

[John Hancock Sr]

I am with Rick, it may not be worth your while. Not sure that the drill jig is designed for mass sharpening in mind, unlike the knife sharpening jig.

You will need the diamond wheel, and the jig, which makes it an expensive setup assuming you don't already have these. Also drill bit sharpening will be hard on the diamond wheel so not sure how many drills you will get out of it.

My advice would be to spend a week or so on a test batch to see exactly how long it takes since you will get much faster with practice. It takes me about 30 minutes per drill but I am should I would cut that down significantly if I did it a lot more. Once you have an idea of how long then add in your Tormek juice, replacement diamond wheels, power et al, you should get a good idea. Given that an 8mm Sutton drill bit is AU$20 then it may not be economical commercially. Cost it really comes into its own for larger drill bits.

[smcinco]

I owned multiple Tormek T-8s for a time.  If you had two of the DBS-22 jigs, you could have one setup for the main facet and one for the relief.  And then it would be pretty quick.  But I would not discount your time as the others have said. They are paying for time savings with the drill bits, so charge appropriately, hopefully enough to pay for the Capex of buying multiple jigs and thensome.

Edit:  one thing that occurred to me, if all of the jobber bits are the same length (should be), then have a 7mm rod/dowel cut to the length the jig requires.  Setup would be very quick.  YMMV.