New Life for my Beloved Drill Doctor

[rgsparber]

My 16 year old Drill Doctor became sick. The collet started to seize up. I could buy a new collet for $35 but could I fix what I had? The answer is a conditional "yes". Is it worth it? Absolutely! Great machine.

If you are interested, please see

http://rick.sparber.org/DDRCF.pdf

Your comments are welcome. All of us are smarter than any one of us.

Thanks,

Rick

[Frank S]

16 year's!!!!!!! I never could get one to last 16 weeks we went through a dozen of them before giving up. Always thought they were a nice little machine great for the occasional use but no where near robust enough to be ran for hours at a time. My fault for trying to go the cheap way out !5 or 16 pneumatic drills running 10 to 12 hours a day can go through a lot of 3/16" bits building wireline truck bodies with 1000's upon 1000's of rivets in them
A company I was working at in 78 was going through 100 or more drill bits every day which was tying up too much of the machinist time sharpening bits when along came a salesman with one of those little machines the purchasing manager bought several and had the foreman assign one to to each work area
I think they found out pretty quickly that these little machines can only be used by 1 person
That being said new chucks are available from the factory for 19.95 replacement diamond stones as well
Parts and Accessories - Current Models | Drill Doctor

[rgsparber]

16 years for me and 16 weeks for you. Makes sense given the work load.

Did you ever use a Cole Drill on those truck bodies?

$19.95 is for the new chucks. The discontinued one I would need costs a bit more.

Rick

[Frank S]

The company bought Dormer brand bits 20 gross at a time. and the little high speed 1/4"pneumatic drill motors had a life expectancy of about 3 to 6 weeks or about 300 to 500 hours I think that was mainly because no one thought about keeping the regulator filters or oil misters maintained. they had close to 100 workers on the floor in all departments I was a floater I might be welding up the draw works spools ( think of huge winch drums with 42" diameter brake drums on each end)one week, or building a hydraulic manipulating arm the next or helping an electrician build a control console with 30 different gauges in it sometimes I would lend a hand in the skinning department all of those drills running at the same time sounded like a billion mosquitoes buzzing around a microphone connected to Pete Townshend's guitar AMP.
It was not uncommon to have 100 hours or more on our time tickets by the end of the week. THe pay was good the hours were long sometimes way too long but the work environment degraded ti unbearable after about 8 months.

[Paul Jones]

Rick,

Thank you for the tip. I have a plastic shell version of the Drill Doctor that I have had for almost ten years but it is getting worn. I use it for sharpening mostly the small number drills. I had to replace the diamond wheel because of developing a grove in it from the smaller diameter drills. I had to do a lot of experimenting to learn how to finally find the best settings and technique for sharpening the smaller #30 to #1 drills. I remember seeing at HMT a small drill sharpening jig that would be good for even smaller drills but can't locate the reference (maybe made by Marv Klotz who does a lot of miniature work?).

Paul

Postscrip - Thanks, Rick, I do have the Guy Lautard's Bedside Readers (see below) and will check it out.

[rgsparber]

If you have Guy Lautard's Bedside Reader, he has a design in there. I made one and it works OK.

Rick

[tonyfoale]

I have a Drill Doctor and in general I'm pleased with it but I do not need to use it 5 days a week. It is obviously not a machine for all day, every day use, but would that it is quite adequate for most members of this forum. Since I made my T&C grinder (the subject of a previous post) I use that for bits larger than 6 mm and keep the Doctor for smaller bits.

[DIYer]

Thanks Rick! We've added your Drill Doctor Refurbishing to our
Drilling and Drill Presses category, as well as to your builder page: Rick's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Drill Doctor Refurbishing by Rick Sparber

tags: collet, restoration