[TR] drill bits

[John Macartney]

It's more than 15 years since I ran my engineering consumables business in France but while there, I 
was the French distributor for a fascinating range of products sold by a UK company called 
Selectequip. Absolutely NFI now as I returned to the UK and retired but the company is still going 
strong and the products are without doubt the very best I've ever come across.
On the question of drill bits, point your browser at 
www.selectequip.co.uk/Product_Specification.asp?ProductRef=325 where you'll see the 'Toolmaster' 
product spec of twist drills. Believe me, the claims made by Selectequip are absolutely true.
We always sold direct to the end-user through commission agents and the only way to be sure of 
getting an order was to demo the product.
With Toolmaster, we used to use a nice rusty and massive bolt or a piece of solid bar, trap it in a 
vice and start drilling at a fairly high speed. You didn't centre-punch, you didn't need to drill a 
pilot - the bit started cutting immediately - AND on a curved surface!. Once through the bolt or 
bar, we'd leave the drill running at a higher speed and slide it back and forth in the hole. We'd 
then pull it out, stop the drill and ask the prospect to grab hold of the drill bit in his fingers.
Well, would you do that with a conventional twist drill after that sort of use?
They always refused so we grabbed it instead. The bit was only warm and in no way hot. That amazed 
them!
The next party piece was to re-insert drill in the hole, set the drill to high speed and then gently 
exert side pressure on the drill web with it still running. Pretty soon the drill web had sawn off 
the top of the bolt or bar - and was still cool!!!
When I sold the business, I made sure I'd got plenty of Toolmaster drills in a variety of imperial 
and metric sizes for my own use and I know without doubt, that when they eventually stuff me in a 
box,. my twist drills will still be in excellent shape and well able to carry on doing the sort of 
thing no normal thinking person would expect of a drill. Have a look at the Selectequip on-line 
catalogue - even if only for interests sake. There's some fascinating stuff there and while its 
certainly not cheap, IMHO its absolutely the best there is.
Again, NFI on my part. I did very nicely out of that business while I was running it and I wish I 
could go back to France and to start up again from where I left off.

Jonmac