blog-putting-the-axminster-170-piece-drill-bit-set-on-the-spotI'm a member of the Product Development team here at Axminster (affectionately known as 'Spot') and for my first post I'd like to put one of our top selling drill bit sets through its paces – this is what I discovered!

Step One of my test was to actually take a look at the set (a good place to start I thought). The first thing of note is that the drills are coated with TiN – what is this? Tin? Well tin is not much harder than lead, so why coat a drill bit with it? Also, surely tin is silver coloured and these bits definitely have a gold appearance! A quick Google search soon put me right. TiN is short for Titanium Nitride, a gold coloured ceramic coating which is nearly as hard as diamond, which improves the life of the drill by a factor of 3 and helps to reduce friction – now it was all beginning to make sense!

Step Two was to decide how to actually test the bits and to see how they performed against higher priced drill bits. An easy decision really – take three 10mm drill bits and drill 12 holes with each into a steel block whilst ensuring consistency across feed rates and drill speeds.

Result! After drilling 36 holes (!) the TiN coated drills performed most impressively and certainly it was almost impossible to discern any real difference between the three bits in use. I have to say that in terms of value for money and performance the Axminster drill bits would be my recommendation every time.

Did they pass the Spot Test? YES
Would I recommend them to a friend? YES
Would I recommend them to someone who can’t be bothered to sharpen bits? YES
Would I put them on my Christmas list? YES

That’s four YES’s – it doesn’t get much better than that!