I am looking into buying individual drill bits, and I want to know if anyone has used mcmaster carrs drill bits, or if anyone has another supplier of good individual drill bits. Our team has no need for an expensive drill index we really just need 4 sizes for the bolts we have, and perhaps another 4 sizes for tapping those bolt sizes.
We use them all the time. They seem to stay sharp long enough for the students to lose them.
McMaster-Carr short length un-coated drill bits (also called stub drills or screw machine drills) are probably not the cheapest option but at around a $1 each, the high quality and quick availability makes up for it. I too am a big fan of buying multiples of what you need over a huge set.
I’ve always found younger students have an easier time drilling straight and accurately with the short length drills. They also usually don’t require the use of a spot drill when used in a mill.
I am not aware of anything sold by McMaster that is not high quality.
We have bought probably thousands of individual drill bits from them over the years and they’re all great. Usually made by PTD/Cleveland/other high quality brands.
You can find cheaper drill bits elsewhere but it certainly isn’t worth the time it takes to order from anyone other than McMaster.
A bit of a tangent but McMaster Ti rods are awful, even the ones with certification often come with craters in the surface. We also once got a sheet of UHMW that had the rough saw cut side as its face. I will say that Mcmaster has always been good about fixing these issues.
Fastenal is my go to for good quality individual bits. There is a good chance there is a store near by.
To store your growing collection of individual drill bits, you want to pick up a Huot drill dispenser cabinet. They are awesome and well worth the price. And they stack.
Cant recommend these enough. We own a few for different types of drill bits then we also bought one and ripped all the labels off of it. We then use a label maker to make our own labels for things we use a lot of or need small storage for. For instance we have a slot for phillips drivers, 1/4-20 bottoming and thru taps, extra slot for 20 drill bits since we use a ton of those. Its totally changed how we organize things and have helped a lot in keeping the shop clean and organized plus cut down on the loss of so much of our smaller tooling.
Now my goal is just to figure out how to justify a Huot Master Cabinet. Those things are so nice yet so expensive.
We use Maritool and McMaster for bits and have been happy with both.
No issues here with McMaster bits, and I prefer the stub length for the reasons mentioned. We keep a couple indexes by the mill/lathe, but keep a stack of the correct tap/thru sized bits (color coded) in our respective fasteners boxes.
For the most part, as long as we don’t run out of the right bits at the places where people need them most, the indexes are spared. The second the main bits walk away, you lose the #9 from the index… then the #10, then the #8 … etc 