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Gentlemen,

Have any of you ever tried grinding your own tobacco hole bits before? I just ground my first 3 the other day with good results (better than PIMO so far). I got some tips from Tim West on how to do it. It was surprisingly easy. However, I was wondering if anyone has ever attempted to hand-grind a silver and deming bit before? I'm 50% sure at this point that I will try it (I can get a set through Harbor Freight for under $20), but it will be an unaided run unless any of you have had any experience with it before.

I'd also be happy to post how I ground the spade bits if anyone is interested in learning/trying.

Jeff

My nieghbor was an accomplished tool and dye worker back in the day. I gave him two silver and demming (reduced shank) bits and a drawing of the profile I wanted the other day, and he is grinding them for me by hand. He showed me some bits he made years ago for other projects and I could not believe how symetrical they were.

He mentioned doing it for me after seeing my own ground spade bits. He did not look impressed. Well, they made an impression but it was more one of fear than anything else lol.

jeff wrote:

I'd also be happy to post how I ground the spade bits if anyone is interested in learning/trying.

Jeff

Hi Jeff!

I'm very interested in your instructions, since importing to Brazil will be quite expensive due to the taxes, grinding my own from standard spade bits would be of great help!

If you prefer to send it to my private email, let me know and I'll pvt you the address.

Post it here if you can. I would not mind checking out how you do it.

Agreed, I'd be very interested myself... I've not tried it yet grinding any yet...

I'll tell you how I did it, but first let me state that "you shouldn't try this at home kids, I'm what you call...a professional."

Anyway, I started by drawing the shape I wanted on a spade bit and using a disc grinder to shape it little by little. Since all I had to preotect my hands was the memory of what 3450RPM sandpaper feels like, I was *very* careful and went slow.

Then when I had the rough profile I wanted, I took it over to the lathe and chucked it into the Oneway with spigot jaws such that the shoulder of the bit was only about a 1/4" from the jaws. I set it spinning at about 2600rpm and set to work on it with a piece of grinding wheel. I wore a lexan face shield that I use when runniing the chainsaw, and a welders apron. Nothing flew off the bit or the piece of wheel though, let alone hit me.

I just worked the bit until I "felt" that it was right. Then I let it cool down and took it back over to the grinder to put the beginins of a sharp edge on it. I finished the cutting edge with a file and stone. So far the bit works rather well.

However, I would still *love* to have a set of reshaped silver and demming bits. I think they'd be much more stable, run cooler, and cut in a more controlled fashion. The above method may work for these bits, skipping the first part about the grinding disk and luching it right into a lathe - however I'll defer to the findings of other folks for that.

Hi Jeff!

Don't leave us waiting like this, LOL!