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How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

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Re: How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

#11

Post by mauvehaus »

wolfram74 wrote: post #6

One thing that strikes me as odd is 2:48 it says the rollomatic produces 48 pieces per hour, and then at 3:24 a human dominated process for centering the work piece to have it's drill curve cut "take four to five hours". They surely don't have 200 of these setting jigs. So, are there just lots of blanks made? do they damage that many of the work pieces in the process of setting one up? Are the surplus units used in s…

They also said that the centerless grinding process is used to reduce the length of the blanks. I'm pretty confident they're doing it to get the finished diameter of the shank.

I find the How It's Made segments to be irritatingly shallow and sometimes grossly inaccurate. You could easily do a 22 minute segment on making these things if you went into more depth.

Re: How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

#12

Post by wantsanagent »

causi wrote: post #7

If you're interested in feats of micro-drilling, I invite you to watch a Japanese game show where a machinist with a micro drill competes against one using an electrical discharge machine to drill lengthwise through a 0.5mm pencil lead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHR9YQl7ObU

I'm afraid the overly-dramatic english dub announcer was too much and I couldn't finish watching. TLDW?

Re: How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

#13

Post by hulke »

wolfram74 wrote: post #6

One thing that strikes me as odd is 2:48 it says the rollomatic produces 48 pieces per hour, and then at 3:24 a human dominated process for centering the work piece to have it's drill curve cut "take four to five hours". They surely don't have 200 of these setting jigs. So, are there just lots of blanks made? do they damage that many of the work pieces in the process of setting one up? Are the surplus units used in s…

It really depends on the workflow and scale of operation the cutting tool manufacturer. Some focus mostly on small batches of very specialized tools, and some focus on producing huge volumes of standardized cutting tools. And anything in between of course.

Whatever the grinding machine that is used, there is always a necessary setup step before the production run. The setup involves installing some equipment on the cnc machine, heating up to operation temperature, calibration, dry run to check for possible collisions and grinding a few pieces and check that they are within specs.

The name of the game is then, given typical customer order or target market, to find the right balance between the utilisation of the different machines, human intervention and automation while optimizing for cost and cutting tool quality.

In the video, it look like it is a pretty small manufacturer doing small specialized batches. In this case most of the time is spent doing machine setup and quality control, and the drill value doesn't justify the investment into a more complex or automated system.

Re: How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

#14

Post by 2ICofafireteam »

BTW: Making small spade bits is completely doable if you have a lathe, stone, and screwdriver sharpening jig.

I've done it myself down to 0.5mm but that smallest one was just an exercise...if I valued my time, it was a $100 bit of much lower quality than what's easiy bought for MUCH less.

Re: How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

#15

Post by mauvehaus »

2ICofafireteam wrote: post #14

BTW: Making small spade bits is completely doable if you have a lathe, stone, and screwdriver sharpening jig. I've done it myself down to 0.5mm but that smallest one was just an exercise...if I valued my time, it was a $100 bit of much lower quality than what's easiy bought for MUCH less.

For anybody who wants to try this themselves, or wants to sharpen drill bits generally, getting the concentricity of the point and the shank accurate is absolutely key.

For normal-sized drills, at best you're going to drill an oversized (and likely tapered) hole. When you get into the smaller sizes, you're going to break bits left and right.

For normal-sized drills an everyday drill sharpening gauge should do the trick. That'll stop being useful long before you get down to 0.5mm.

If you're drilling wood or some other soft material, and you've got bar stock of the right diameter around that isn't hardened (i.e. a nail), you can sometimes get away with clipping the end of the nail off with a pair of diagonal cutters and peck drilling. You have to peck because the shank fills the hole so there's no way to clear the chips.

Re: How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

#16

Post by LeifCarrotson »

2ICofafireteam wrote: post #14

BTW: Making small spade bits is completely doable if you have a lathe, stone, and screwdriver sharpening jig. I've done it myself down to 0.5mm but that smallest one was just an exercise...if I valued my time, it was a $100 bit of much lower quality than what's easiy bought for MUCH less.

Clickspring has an excellent video on simple shop-made drills:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1aj_3tlQhU

You don't need the lathe (though he uses one to rotate it for easy sanding, a drill chuck would work just as well), merely a stone, a torch, and some stock of appropriate diameter...you only need the lathe if you're starting with a shapeless chunk, and this isn't the stone age anymore!

https://www.mcmaster.com/metals/hardened-undersized-high-spe...

Re: How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

#18

Post by 1-6 »

causi wrote: post #7

If you're interested in feats of micro-drilling, I invite you to watch a Japanese game show where a machinist with a micro drill competes against one using an electrical discharge machine to drill lengthwise through a 0.5mm pencil lead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHR9YQl7ObU

Just when you think there were shows that couldn't be more niche, Japan goes full-on otaku.

Re: How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

#19

Post by layer8 »

wantsanagent wrote: post #12
causi wrote: post #7

If you're interested in feats of micro-drilling, I invite you to watch a Japanese game show where a machinist with a micro drill competes against one using an electrical discharge machine to drill lengthwise through a 0.5mm pencil lead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHR9YQl7ObU

I'm afraid the overly-dramatic english dub announcer was too much and I couldn't finish watching. TLDW?

Part 2 is missing anyway, there’s no resolution.

Re: How Micro Drill Bits Are Made [video]

#20

Post by legohead »

layer8 wrote: post #19
wantsanagent wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid the overly-dramatic english dub announcer was too much and I couldn't finish watching. TLDW?

Part 2 is missing anyway, there’s no resolution.

I've seen it before, the machinist defeats the EDM.
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