We all have 118 and 135 degree drill bits in our shops and sometimes we use them as all-around drill bits for those occasions where a hole is needed and we think little about surface finish and the speeds feeds and geometry that makes good chips and nice finishes.

We drill and machine plastics all the time and for the most part never thought much of dedicating a tool for the job. In our recent project we thought it’d be nice to try something different. It alps just so happened that we were greeted with a display of plastic drill bits near the checkout counter at TAP plastics, our local plastics shop.

So being good citizens of supporting our economy by purchasing tooling we bought one to try out.

The drill bit on the left has a very sharp point and acute included angle. The flutes look to be similar to that of “jobber” bits.

Well color us impressed when we drilled a hole in acrylic not giving much thought to the surface finish and we end up with this…

Woah!

As clean as can be

Is it worth around 5x the cost? Perhaps not for most jobs but if clean cuts is desired go for it!