Micro drills

[Simpo Two]

I'm getting very disappointing results with sets of micro drills (eg 0.5-1mm diameter). There's either the thin kind which are often almost flat across the tip so they don't drill, or the ones with a thicker shank and pretty plastic ring - but those are deeply fluted and tend to shear the moment they meet resistance. I'm drilling wood for model boats.

When my local model shop was open 20 years ago I could buy decent quality ones that lasted ages. Where can I buy high quality micro drills (ie not Chinese) please?

[Geoff391]

Any use ? Not used them and unfortunately no reviews yet

https://www.axminster.co.uk/11-piece-micro-drill-s...

[dr_gn]

At the end of the day, if you're using a sub-1mm diameter drill of any quality, if you're not very careful, you're going to break it.

I've had several sets of the Chinese drills, some are good, some didn't even have flutes, never mind cutting edges.

Also had the cheap tapered shank PCB drills, which as you say have coarse flutes (don't find it an issue TBH).

The best set I had were stainless steel PCB types, which were expensive. However, the vast majority of the drills that have survived this far are the cheap Chinese versions. I'm using them extensively on an F1 model at the moment - can't remember the last time I snapped one.

I've ended up with dozens of drills, in fact I spent a very 'boring' evening last week sorting them all out and putting them into a holder:





The other thing is to buy 10x of the diameters you use most. I've done this for 0.3mm and 0.5mm, so if you break one just use another. They were cheap enough from EBay.

[ShampooEfficient]

I got 3x 1mm PCB drills from eBay for £3.25. They're good enough for plastic 1/24 models I'm making. The only times I've broken them is by my own cackhandedness.