skip find box of slot drills

Last week I stumbled across a skip full of gems including a couple of bars of mild steel some nice old wood saws and a box of slot drills!

Always good to have a look in skips you never know what goodies you might find,

Anyway asides from recounting my good fortune, I was starting to get 'buyers regret' (not that I bought anything) that the slot drills might be knackered hence in the skip.......

Most of the slot drills are Clarkson brand from 8mm to 20mm in a range of 2 flute and 3 flute. Initially I thought that the slight concave edge to the front face was wear but have done some research this may be factory ground.

What are your thoughts on the usefulness of these tools?

Pics can be found in my photo album.

Never look a gift horse in the face! There's life in those and if mine I would regrind them if necessary.

Some may need a sharpen but no harm done giving them a try. Even if the tips are shot the flutes may be ok. I would say a good find. These are the kind of things I like to find as the HSS itself is still useful as lathe tooling when attacked with a bench grinder.

regards

The bottom cutting edges of slotdrills and endmills are hollow ground, usually by around 1 degree or so, to avoid rubbing when slotting. A corollary is that when plunge cutting they do not leave a flat bottomed hole. The tools look to be usable without regrinding.

Andrew

I was also going to ask if I need threaded holders and if they would be practical to use in my speed 10 or do I need an industrial size mill such as a bridport to use them?

Complete junk m8, I'll pm you my address and i'll safely dispose of them into my cutter drawer.

All you need to do is check the pointy bits are still sharp as that's the first place they go. No one keeps pristine cutter boxes to the throw the old blunt stuff away in. Those are new.

You can use threaded shanks in ER collets and finger collets gripping the parallel shank with no problem. I have never used the holders with a screw designed for shanks with a flat so can't comment on how well that works but I think I would avoid that set-up. Since they are likely to be 3 sizes of metric (Ø10, 12, 16) or three sizes imperial (3/8", 1/2", 5/8" ) only if you get a square ER collet block and a few collets that match the threaded shanks you can hold them securely in a 4 jaw chuck and ensure they are running true as well.

Martin C

Edited for unwanted smiley

Edited By Martin Connelly on 24/01/2022 12:41:57

Hi Jon,

Congratulations, to me the milling cutters look like new. If not sharp you should be able to grind the cutting edge.

Thor

Wish I could find a skip like that

Colin

Which part of the country has these treasures?

Last skip I looked into was full of disintegrating wet chipboard kitchen carcasses and garnished with half a dozen plastic bags full of dog poo.

No friendly scrapyards offering bargain off-cuts either.

Just in case the skip hirer happens to stumble across this post and wants his/her stuff back lets just say its in the west country. Im sure the former owner wouldnt want a huge que of people outside there house asking for free stuff!

But your spot on Sod its not every day you come across a load of useful workshop tools. Normally I might have to wade past the broken cans of emulsion, runny plaster and soiled carpet only to find a box of rusty files and crusty garden tools.

I also got 2 useable vintage woodsaws and a hobbies brand coping saw.