Fretwork spade drills.

Made up a replacement nose piece for my old archimedian drill this afternoon and then looked for some fretwork spade drills that I have. The stache was down to a couple of drills, better get some on order. Spent time looking on the web without any joy, are they still made? The ones I have are 2mm shank and varying spade diameters.

Are they really defunct or is my google foo not up to finding them? Maybe they have another name which I am unaware of? I seem to remember clockmakers using something similar.

Regards,

Andrew.

Andrew , Would the pearl drills as sold by Walsh and Son be of interest ?

I've not seen them for sale for ages; I have made my own in the past from sewing and darning needles.
Break off the eye, just as the needle shank widens out and then stone the remaining stub to a spade point.
The final drilling end comes out just wider than the needle, and works quite well.

Bill

To keep the nostalgia alive : **LINK**

http://www.finescrollsaw.com/hobbies1912catalogue/hobbies1912catalogue.htm

MichaelG.

I have one of these treadle-powered fret saws going begging if anyone wants it. It is a later model and needs cleaning up and a new belt, but it is all there and moves. I picked it up, but cannot see me getting around to using it. Free to collector from Aylesbury.

James.

Thanks for the heads up Trevor, it would cost a fair bit to stock up at those prices. I seem to remember that the fretwork spade drills or something similar was used in watchmaking, these were known as forrets(?. seems that they are defunct now.

My last purchase of fretwork spade drills was 40 years ago. I got them from a local ironmongers (now long since gone). They were probably "old stock" even then.

Looks like I will make some, as it doesn't look too difficult. I have found that the archimedian drill and the spade drills were very easy to use, much better than other options at the time. The pre war Herbert high speed drill that i restored 18 months ago, may well be a better bet now.

Andrew.