Tools for Rookie Team?

[Elgin Clock]

Originally posted by sanddrag
And never use the black woven cutoff blades for aluminum.

Yeah, those work as good as cleaning aluminum on a grinding wheel!! <--Another bad move I made my first year on the team!

[D. Gregory]

We did that last year because our leader wouldn't listen to me when I told him we needed a carbon tipped blade. He figured that a black woven blade cost 10 bux and cut steel, a hard metal so aluminum would be a cakewalk. We were too poor to even buy a 80 dollar(CDN) blade (we only had 2 robot batteries for peets sake!). Even after I gave him an long explanation about carcinogenic gas and using the grind wheel example we still used it. We had the world's smelliest and messiest cuts. The area that was cut turned to slag hahaha. We eventually bummed a carbon blade from a members father. The workshop was very smelly and hazy after the woven steel blade cuts.

[crazy_ratchet]

ok, this is not exactly to topic, but this was the closes thread that i found that was still open. what would be the best aloy for drill bits for our aplications (Al aloys and steel). i'm not too clear on the differences in all thouse carbide tungdsten molly... alloys and how it translates to drill between sharpening and drill bit strength, as well as likelyhood of breaking. Could someone wiith machine shop experience please tell me. i was thinkinh of maybe m42 steel drill bits set. 115 bits 1/16"-1/2" by 1/64"th fractions, and then by 1/32" to 1". basicly something that we could buy this year and not replace anything other then maybe the wire gage bits for several years, with minimal or no sharpening. also does bit coating really matter if you end up sharpening them, might as well get something that would not really require sharpening. as far as i get it, coatings are used to reduce friction more then anything else. thanks i really apreciated. the backgrouond is that all of or bits from previous years are worn/dull/broken/bent we also wanted to get a drill press, which i hope we do, and in that case i think we would not have to worry about snaping bits. thank you all in advance.

[Stephen P]

A tube cutter is also useful, cuts some (especially thin-ish) metal tubes better than hack saw, good for making spacers (altough some are provided this year).

[crazy_ratchet]

i was asking specifically for ALLOYS for the drill bits, not their coating, for if you have to sharpen a bit and the coating is gone, it's as good as if it was not there. does anyone have a knowledge of the pros and cons of various alloys that are used for drill bits (M2 M42 just to name 2). thanks you all in advance