Broken Brad Point

[hazmat74]

Anybody ever have the tip of a brad point bit break off? I was drilling wood with a 7mm that came from PSI. I was doing a standard drilling process: working slowly, clearing chips, etc. Got through the blank and got ready to drill the next and noticed the tip had broken clean off. Couldn't even find it. The bit never even got very warm, much less hot. Never had this happen before and I've drilled much tougher woods than Mopani.

 

[hard hat]

Drill dr it into a split point and keep on keepin on

 

[walshjp17]

Never had one break off accidentally, but did grind one down once for a special drilling operation.

 

[Whaler]

Do yourself a favor and buy quality drill bits.
Arizona Silhouette: Norseman Drill Bits

 

[Ed McDonnell]

I've had it happen with a brad point and even bullet point (on some really really hard wood). Even though that was only two drill bits broken over a lot of hard drilling, I stopped using them because I couldn't sharpen them. A well sharpened (correct angle for the job and both sides even) standard twist drill will drill straight and clean.

Ed

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Do yourself a favor and buy quality drill bits.
Arizona Silhouette: Norseman Drill Bits

I noticed that the norseman bits are gound to a 135 degree point angle instead of the 118 that seems to be more common on the bargain priced drill bits. That makes a huge difference (good) in the materials most commonly used by pen makers (but not metals).

Ed

 

[edstreet]

Drill dr it into a split point and keep on keepin on

I would wager good $ in this case that there was some crap quality heat treatment and/or bit quality at play here so doing the Dr option would seem grossly unwise to me.

Do yourself a favor and buy quality drill bits.
Arizona Silhouette: Norseman Drill Bits

Seriously? You could do much better than that, not only on item but also on store.

 

[hazmat74]

The bit came with the PSI mandrel saver kit I purchased a few months ago. I'm not overly concerned about the bit or what to do with it going forward. I'll buy another one and move on. I've simply never had any drill bit break on me like that and was curious. I've used bits that have no reason to even be cutting and never had one of those break exactly at the tip. It was pretty bizarre and also had me wondering at the quality of PSI's tooling.