If your drill bits keep breaking, I can sympathize. It happens to me too. But I also know how to prevent, or at least reduce, how often this happens. In this blog post, I’ll tell you why your drill bits keep breaking, and that knowledge will help keep it from happening as frequently in the future.
It happens to all of us. You are drilling a hole in wood as part of a project, and suddenly the drill bit snaps off. So now you have to find the next closest size drill bit in what you have, and hope that it is close enough.
This problem is especially common on very small drill bits. And maybe it’s just me, but it seems like those smaller drill bits are the ones I use most often.
What causes drill bits to break
The most common reason drill bits break is because the drill bit comes under stress while you are using it. If you are drilling and you change the position of the drill slightly, that causes the bit to bend and then break.
Nobody tries to break their drill bits, so it’s not right to say this happens intentionally or unintentionally. Maybe it’s better to say it happens because of one of two mistakes, one of them completely unintentional.
Try steadying the drill with your other hand
I break a lot of drill bits because I have really shaky hands. I always have. So I find that if I use my second hand to steady the drill while I am drilling, it really reduces the number of times I accidentally break a drill bit. It’s almost always when I am in a position where I don’t have my other hand free that I end up breaking my drill bit.
I guess that’s another tip, or at least a half tip. If you’re in a position where you’re drilling and don’t have both hands free, try to get into a different position if at all possible.
Changing angles or drill sizes properly
The other time when you are likely to break a drill bit is when you are drilling and you realize you didn’t get the angle quite where you wanted it to be, or you didn’t get the hole quite the right size. So it’s very tempting to change the angle. And when drilling a large hole, you might get away with it.
But you can’t get away with that with a small drill bit. So if you need to change your angle, stop drilling, pull the drill out, reposition near the top, and then start again. Putting a toothpick in the hole can make it easier to not follow the exact same path a second time. Like water, a drill bit is going to try to take the path of least resistance.
And if you got the size wrong, it’s better to pull the drill out, switch to a larger bit, and then try again, rather than trying to bore out a larger hole with a smaller drill bit.
It’s easier said than done, because we all get in a hurry sometimes. The very idea for this blog post came to me because I was out of useful drill bits. I have a couple of incomplete sets, and all of them just have the larger bits left that never break. I went to the hardware store, bought a new set of bits, opened the package, chucked a bit into a drill, and broke the bit on its very first use. I’d even paid extra for titanium-coated bits. As I was drilling I could see the bit bending as it was turning, as if in slow motion. I started to release the trigger, but by then it was too late.
None of us can do anything about last time, but hopefully we can prevent next time.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
If you are drilling small work that can be brought to the tool rather than bringing the tool to the job, consider getting and using a drill press. So long as you keep the work stationary, you will rarely break bits when using one. Unless they are the REALLY tiny bits for working on printed circuit boards; those wear out quickly and break if you look at them wrong, which is why they are customarily bought in quantity.
Excellent point, I’ve never broken a drill bit in my drill press.