Colt lip and spur drill set (Axminster clearance offer)

[Eric The Viking]

£32.50 incl. (plus postage. etc.)

There's a thread on drilling problems in the General section, but I thought this would be better here.

I already had a couple of Colt lip and spur drills, 10mm bought for dowelling. They're different to the others I have, with double splines to the flutes on the outside, and very sharp and pointy, and they cut well. So when I saw Axminster had this set on offer, and I had a suitable excuse, I couldn't resist.

First impressions: good. They arrived in a tidy box, made of a routed out beech block. Neat and safe. I found with a bit of fiddling about I could get one extra 10mm drill in, and move the others around to accommodate it. Handy. It all feels like quality kit - sharp where it should be sharp and smooth elsewhere. You do need to mind the ends, as the outer spurs (lip?) on these things are sharp, like, er, very pointy, sharp things.

To the business of actually making holes: My 'excuse' was a bit pathetic - I've been making a stand for our solitary tomato growbag (get it off the ground, away from the slugs & snails). M+T joints in posts, but drawbored as they meet inside the post (mitred ends to the tenons). 8mm dowels. The holes needed to be accurate, because of the small offset, and any tearout in the tenons would weaken the drawboring effect (he said, with zero experience of doing it previously!).

I don't like deal, but I've been using up stuff from building work that would otherwise have been taken to the tip. The wood has nasty resin inclusions, and the posts have shakes already (it's been out all winter, three winters actually, and the morticer was making steam as it cut). It never mortices nicely in my experience, even with really sharp tools. I didn't want drilling to make the hidden mess inside the mortices worse by tearing up the insides.

But these drills are truly amazing. I noticed several unusual things:

• They cut fast. They do fill with chips, as you'd expect, but they don't clog and squeal, they clear it, even though this stuff was resinous and damp and nasty.
  
• The holes are clean and straight. Fast-grown, studwork-quality pine has nasty growth rings - there's a huge difference in density between summer and winter wood, and most drills want to run down the 'balsa' stuff. As long as I started with the drill fully up to speed (fine with a drill press), these just went where they were pointed. They also ignored pilot indentations. My marking was off (on the tenons), but I could just point the drill in the correct place, and even though that was into the side of the pilot mark, the hole went where it should.
  
• There's virtually no breakout. The impressive thing is that there's virtually no breakout without a sacrificial backer. I've watched the video. I thought, "yeah, right! that's set up to show them off to their best advantage." But it really did what it was supposed to: If you slow up slightly at the far side, and let the centre point cut its way out first, for some reason the exit hole really is clean.
  
  I'm mystified as to how this works - without something sacrificial to push against, it must tear, shirley? Nope. It doesn't. Even when faced with rough-sawn tenon cheeks (straight off the bandsaw), the exit was clean. How long this will last as the edges inevitably dull (HSS) I can't say. As new, from the box, even the 3mm one behaved in the same way - cut cleanly fast and well.

In summary: bloomin' amazing. I really have never used wood drills as good as these before.

The countersink, incidentally is also excellent - doesn't chatter and does work at all the sizes it fits (3mm - 7mm in the set). You could use it for 8mm or bigger too, by countersinking with it fitted to a 7mm drill. It also makes a handy depth stop, when fitted upside down, although it's big enough to cause sawdust trapped underneath to scuff the surface.

I can only assume Axminster are dropping the range for commercial reasons - it can't be for quality. It's my short-term gain, as I couldn't have possibly afforded the full price (I've seen larger Colt sets elsewhere costing several hundreds of pounds). I will be looking for another Colt reseller here though (they're made in Germany), as I will replace these as necessary. Now I've tried them, they'll be saved for the most critical and tricky jobs, as they really do work well.

My advice: jump in and grab a set before Axminster either sell out or change their minds! I doubt you'll be disappointed.

E.

 

[petermillard]

Thanks for that - still in stock, just bought a set

 

[Peter Sefton]

The Colt Lip and Spur are very good. We use them in the workshop and stock them in the tool shop if you are interested.
Cheers Peter

 

[Eric The Viking]

Thanks Peter, duly noted

E.