QUANZHOU L&V TOOL Drill bits

[Daniel]

I am considering doing a buy for drill bits from China. I have received samples of these bits and have sent them to three other members of this group to be evaluated. This thread is being created as a place for them to post there comments on these bits.
I mailed the bits first class yesterday and it will take at least a few days for them to torture them so it iwll be a while before much is added to this thread.

I have had a look at 29 bits and this is what I found.
out of 29 bits ranging in size from 7mm to 14mm I found only two machining issues and one of those was minor and one may only look like a problem. the one that I am not sure about is that one bit may have the point ground off center, my eye is not as good as it used to be so I am not all that certain it is just by looking at it.
The Ti bits are identical to the ones in my Harbor Freight set. the stamps on them are actually better than most of my HF bits. out of 29 bits only one was a little hard to read. all the rest are very well stamped and readable.
the machining is good and consistent throughout all the bits, I found only one small burr on the tip of one bit, it was left after grinding the cutting lip and was at the start of the flute, this woudl not effect the bits ability to drill.
I expect to find out more about how well they wear after the testers are finished with them as well as how well they resharpen. Remember all bits wear out and get dull. We will be trying to find out just how soon they do and how well they take a new edge once they have.
I was talking to a machine shop person yesterday when i first got the bits. He mentioned several times that what you are drilling will matter a lot as to how long a bit will wear. He pointed out that in some cases he can get longer life from a bit by drilling stainless steel than he can by drilling aluminum with the same bit. so harder does not necessarily equate to faster dulling. some materials are simply more abrasive for various reasons.
In all I am happy with what I see and just by looking I think the Ti bits are at least equal to what most of use already use, and the HSS are better than ones I have gotten from both P.S.I. or CSUSA. they look much nicer than any HSS bits I have gotten from HF.

 

[Daniel]

That was sort of fun but I am till not finished.
I did do some measurments on some bits.
all of them measured within 1/1000 of an inch of what they are supposed to be at the margin. (the part of the bit that determins how big the hole will be)
All holes where clen, burnished and round in both wood and acrylic.
I had no break outproblem even when exiting the most brittle acrylic I have. I was actually suprised with that one as all my other bits will take small chunks out as they exit the blank.
I drilled a blank for a 7mm tube and the fit was just the way I like it, not to tight so there is room for some glue and not loose. the tube slipped in with no interferrence of any kind. this is new for me as my bit from P.S.I. drills a hole that causes tubes to bind about two thirds of the way in. so this is a great improvment for me.

I tested these bits to get an idea of jsut how well they stand up to heat as well as how well they clear chips.

a 14mm bit was able to drill a 3" deep close end hole (all chips had to be lifted out by the bit) in cedar in one pass. I never did reach the limit for this bit because I ran out of travel in my drill press. It would have kept going for probably anouther half to one inch at least, the bit did not heat up. some info to help you gauge how this preformance measures up to what a bit is designed to do. a 14mm bit is slightly larger than 1/2 inch. a bit is designed to drill three times it's diameter or in this case 1 1/2 inches before you need to back it out to help clear chips and then start driling again. this process is called pecking. when you restart the drilling you do not expect to get anouther 1 1/2 inch of progress, you shoudl then retract the bit every diameter or less or in this case 1/2 inch to help clear chips. this bit drilled 6 times it's diameter and was showing no signs of struggling at all. of course cedar is a fairly soft wood which can help.

I also tested a 3/8ths inch bit the same way. i was able to drill 3" into cedar in two passes, the bit did get warm but not Hot, I could touch it immediatly after drilling the hole. it did not squeel indicating binding until it had drilled 2 1/2 inches into the wood. proper drilling would have been retracting and clearing after about 1 inch. I once again was not really able to determin this bits limit by using cedar, so I sacraficed a cocobolo blank. on this case the flutes clogged and the bit was no longer able to drill at 1 1/2 inch. I did finish a 3" closed end hole in two passes but the wood chips did start smoking right at the very end. although the bit did get so hot it could not be touched it did not overheat and turn blue. Most of my other bits are far touchier than this when it comes to heat and i woudl have expected both my 7mm and 10mm bits to have burned.

all hole in all cases where clean and round with the tubes for them fitting properly. I am not sure of a 14mm as I do not have a tube to test that hole.

I was unable to measure any run out but tube fit tests show that the hole is round and the fit is proper with all of these bits.

I still want to wear out the cutting lip and resharpen it just to know those limits but I am already convinced these bits are not only as good as what I already use, in many ways they are better.

 

[Daniel]

I pasted this here form Ken's original post

This is what I found out about Daniels drill bits, when I first received them I did a pretty thorough inspection, All of the uncoated bits were clearly marked, the only problem I noticed and that actually didn't appear at that time was there was no mm. designation. I was my fault for not considering that the drill in question was metric and not numeric.
The Tin coated bits had some trouble on the cutting lips, as there was some light burring on the inside toward the web, these burrs knock off very easy with a round die stone. and On the drills I was sent the markings were very light on the Tin coated drills compared to the bright finish HSS bits. The quality of the ground surface of point was a bit too coarse, when compared to some new Cleveland Twist Drill company drills I had received about the same time,
This doesn't present any real problem other than cosmetics and a very remote chance of building up heat,. I first used the ½ inch HSS I put it in a CNC lathe and started drilling mild low carbon steel, (1018) I drilled a total depth of 31 inches in various pieces of scrap 1 inch round stock.
I was surprised with the drills cutting ability, the chisel point was very close to center, the margins were good and sharp, the first 10 pieces which were drilled between 1.5 and 2 in deep were close to being with in .002 being .5012 to .4985, it cleared its chips well and performed far better than expected.
The 7.mm was the next drill I used also a regular HSS bit. Drilled in Polyester Resin dead on center drilled a clean round hole, I drilled 5 sets of blanks, all were within .0015 on wood, Paduk, and Ironwood and Ipe it was pretty easy drilling, the Ipe and PR the drill bit did get warm, I may have drilled a bit fast on the PR the Ipe is just hard to drill.
I drilled a piece of Ironwood with the letter X drill, nice true hole also drilled a piece of Olivewood, both holes were clean and round . I haven't tried any of the other drills yet, but "these drill bits are far better than the Harbor freight set or the import sets from Enco,"
They are good drill for the money, I saw somewhere a ridiculous price posted for a larger bit 12.5 or 13.3 but I can buy OSG coolant through drill bits for much les than the 200.00 shown, these are not going to hold up as long as a Chicago Latrobe, Cleveland Twist drill co. or OSG or Onsurd, But you aren't paying the double to triple or more for these drills either, I know Daniel is wanting feed back on the bits he sent me but these are the only ones I've used I will be drilling more blanks this week and will drill some more steel scrap as well.
In My opinion as a person who relies on quality tools for a living, these would be marginally adequate, For just drilling good true straight holes in Wood, Acrylics, Aluminum. They are a very good drill bit,
__________________
Ken Ferrell
Leapwood TN.
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Thomas Jefferson
www.kenspens.etsy.com

 

[Daniel]

This is pasted from Gary's original post

Hello All. I am another one of Daniels bit testers. The following report is exactly what I saw using my tools and equipment. An abbreviated introduction for those who do not know me and might wonder at how I am qualified to test tools and know one type from another, I have been a tool and die maker over 30 years and have my own American made mill and engine lathe in my pole barn along with a variety of other makes of power and hand tools.
I recieved 8 drill bits from Daniel. Letters J (.277), U (.368), S (.348). Fractional sizes 13/32 (.406), 31/64 (.484), 25/64 (.390), 23/64 (.359) and an 8mm bit. Using a digital micrometer that reads out four places to the ten thousands I measured all the bits first thing. The J, U, 25/64, and 23/64 were all .002 under size. The S and 31/64 were .003 under size, the 8mm was .003 under size and the 13/32 was .005 under size. Next I checked straightness using a magnetic v-block and test indicator reading to one thousands, or out to three places. These bits ran from true to .001 out of round which surprised me for China tooling. Other China made bits I have run in the past ran out .010 (ten thousands) and more. In the machine shop I used to supervise, I outlawed the use of China made tooling and measuring instruments because they would not hold to the quality standards needed to produce the parts my customers expected.
Next came the actual drilling test. I used a Bridgeport mill for drilling in mild steel. I figured feeds and speeds with a machining hand book that I have. Half the bits were tin coated and the other half was high speed steel. BOTH types held up close to the same in tool life. This did not say much to me for the quality of the coating. Tool life for drill bits is best measured by diameter of the bit. A one inch bit will drill a lot more inches of depth than a 1/8 th inch bit. All bits drilled from between 40 to 50 diameters in the mild steel using wd 40 as a coolant and lube. I sharpened all bits with my trusty dr 750 and was surprised to see tool life go to between 50 and 80 diameters. Hole size was within .006 for factory sharp and .004 with the resharp. Size was to actual measured dimension of the drill bit. I resharpened the bits again and moved to my 17 inch Craftsman drill press for the wood test. Having used all the bits in new condition on the steel test, I have only resharps to test on wood. To make long testing short, I drilled lots of holes on oak, maple and 2x4s. I had a Maple tree come down in my back yard and an Oak lost a large branch in a neighbors yard, so I had lots of test wood after I bandsawed it to slabs for testing. Hole size was within .008 just ramming the bit down and that got better with proper drilling and chip clearing. Hole finish was rough as expected with hard, fast feed but cleaned up nice with "proper" drilling procedure.
Short summary, Bits were better than I expected. They did "OK" in steel, but for my steel work, I will stick to the brands that I use myself because I trust them and do get better life. For working in wood and drilling pen blanks, These work very well and surprised me with the results, being far better than I expected. I would not use the coated drills because with the first resharp, you grind off the coating on the bottom edge and lose a lot of the advantage of coated tooling. Also coated tools are designed more for metal cutting and have no real advantage in wood, IMHO. The high speed bits for the money for pen blank drilling gets the thumbs up. They were far better in wood than I expected.
On a final note, I rechucked the bits in the mill and cranked up the feed rate. Again in the mild steel. These bits "toasted" in a hurry. Much faster than a premium (and far more costly) bit that I normally work with. However, IMHO, using these bits in wood should give you good bit life and with proper feed rates and chip clearing, good hole size and finish.

The above is my findings and my thoughts. Please feel free to ask questions or e-mail or pm me with questions or comments.
__________________
Gary
Otsego, Michigan

 

[vera123]

Daniel, thank you and all of testers!