Bits for Drilling Wood

[John Goodin]

I am looking for a decent set of brad point drill bits from about 1/16" to 1/2." Maybe a set of around 12 to 15 bits for no more than 60 dollars. I have tried some of the Dewalt bits but they seem to flex and run around at the smaller sizes, even when plunged slowly. There is a previous thread but most of the info centers around WL Fuller and Lee Valley and are more than I want to spend.

[Joe Kieve]

I've been pleased with the Colts I purchased at Woodcraft. It's been a while but I think I paid $29 for a set from 1/8" to 1/2" by sixteenths.

[glenn bradley]

It seems that as soon as you move to a quality HSS bit with better geometry, your budget is blown. As long as you stay with the sets targeting "utility" you should be able to find something that will work in your price range. Finding the higher quality and the lower price may prove a challenge. Maybe you could buy a smaller high end set and then fill it in as your needs come up? I know this isn't what you want to hear but, I switched to the Lee Valley lipped bits this way many yeas ago and have never looked back.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

You did not indicate how many you want in your set.

I purchased a set of Colts, thought that they were OK. There were not many in the set.

Lee Valley sells three different sets of brad point bits. The utility level bits are in your price range depending on how many bits you really want. A set of 7 from 1/8 to 1/2 (in 1/16" increments I think) is about $22.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.aspx?p=42261&cat=1,180,42240

I purchased their set in HSS that starts at 5/64 (So it is 1/64 larger than 1/16) to 1/2 in increments of 1/64, but it cost almost $200

http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.aspx?p=42247&cat=1,180,42240

They also offer carbide tipped bits for even more money

http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.aspx?p=42352&cat=1,180,42240

I suppose that the first question is, how many bits do you really need? If you really want 1/16 to 1/2 in 1/64, for the money that you mention, you probably need to get something lower quality like this:

http://www.woodcraft.com/product/151040/woodriver-29-piece-fractional-inch-brad-point-drill-bit-index-set.aspx

They are listed as not great. That said, how many of these bits will you use often? Your most used bits you can then purchase with higher quality. So, you have the cheap the set and for often used bits, use the carbide tipped bits. For less often, you purchase some individual HSS. For occasional use, the lower quality bits are just fine as long as they cut a clean hole and are straight; but straight is the primary complaint in the reviews about these cheaper bits. I found it odd that the metric reviews do not complain about warped bits. So, hit or miss on these I think.

[lowell holmes]

I've never had much luck with brad point bits. I've had good luck with forstner bits . I drill almost all of the way through and when the point breaks through the bottom, turn the board over and finish the hole.

[Steve Peterson]

My low priced brad point bits have horrible quality. The tips look like they were ground by hand and the points are not centered. This makes them nearly useless for their intended purpose.

I trust the HSS or carbide bits from Lee Valley. They are on my wish list. Unfortunately, this puts you into a higher price category. You will only cry once.

Steve

[Greg R Bradley]

The Lee Valley set mentioned by my brother and Andrew above ARE the good quality vs low cost compromise: http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.aspx?p=42247&cat=1,180,42240

The big issue with all low cost bits is accuracy. The only ones that I found that were accurately machined and lower cost were the Fisch Chrome Vanadium bits. They are low end steel without the design improvements of the better bits but they were at least accurate. Sadly, they seem to be making these in China now and the quality has suffered a bit. Also much of these on the market are counterfeit so I'm guessing whoever was making them for Fisch is now competing with them. Or somebody working there made extra copies of the tooling and is doing the counterfeiting themselves.

I bought a set of Fisch HSS bits from Amazon and they were also counterfeit. $120 for a 7 piece 1/8-1/2" set and not any better than Harbor Freight. Amazon made that mistake easy to fix.

If you really need to start at a low cost, I'm guessing you might want to try Lee Valley's cheaper set mentioned by Andrew above. No experience, just seems Lee Valley sells very little that is poor quality and customer service is excellent.

I bought Rockler's big set to have some in-between sizes and to use for something that might damage them or let my son use. They were $50 and on sale for $29.95. Still about double what they are worth.

Stay completely away from Dewalt bits except for Rotary Hammer bits and some of their hex driver bits.

[John Goodin]

Thanks for all the advice. It seems that most drilling 1/4" and over I use forstner bits so the Lee Valley 12 bit set with small diameters to 1/4" may do the trick. Then again Christmas is coming up and a bigger set would make shopping easy for my wife.