Drill grinders/sharpeners and their capabilities

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

I currently use a Picador drill sharpener with a 4” diamond wheel. It works very satisfactorily on drills up to 1/2” when all you want is a standard grind (i.e. no split point et al.)

I’m considering getting a machine with greater capabilities and capacity, for example a DG20M, but I’m not totally sure what they’ll do and won’t do.

Ideally I’d want the machine to be able to:

1. put a standard grind on straight shank twist drills and spot drills from 60-135 degrees, and also on taper shank drills, up to 20mm.
2. Create a split point and the associated back grind on the trailing edge;
3. Thin the web where necessary.

The DG20M appears to do everything but the last*. The only machine I’ve seen in fact that has a separate function for thinning the web is on Stefan Gotteswinter’s channel, where he shows this on a Motom BSM13 Duo. Even the much more pricy Darex V-391 doesn’t appear to have this web thinning capability, though I couldn’t say for sure at this stage.

Sadly, I do not have room for a Clarkson or Brierley, which is why I’m exploring smaller options for now.

*edit: its smallest angle is in fact 90 degrees.

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