Hello,

Bottom right are mortise chisels and bits, for making mortises in timber, not cheap for quality ones.

The two items above them, are yokes/adapters, to fit the chisels to a pillar drill.

Mark.

Dan

Tools on the right are a mortice chisel set to use with a pillar drill. Drills go down the middle of the hollow square chisel which follows the drill down taking out the extra to make the round, drilled, holes square. Two adapters provided to hold the mortice chisels, presumablt different sizes to fit different drill quill diameters.

Drill grinder is an original Picador which works well once you have got the knack of setting drill angle and projection as per the instructions. Follow the book don't be tempted by different advice all over the internet, You Tube and forums which pertains to poorly made copies of the General / Spiralux design whose geometry is different due to the pivot spindle being at an angle rather than vertical as in the Picador.

The jig is fitted to the bench on which the grinder stands pointing at the side of the wheel as per the sketch in bottom right corner of the instructions. The slot in the foot is provided so distance between grinder and drill point to be adjusted as needed. Needs a wing nut or similar easily operated clamping device.

The jig was very much made down to an affordable price so certain things are not as good as they mich be. The foot mount could definately satns some improvement. Needs some sort of guide so you can slide it straight in and out. I made as separate carrier for mine with a 3/8" thick steel base and 14 gauge side plates to rigidly guide it. Should have put a screw on to for accurate positioning. But I managed well enough for 30 years or so.

Clive

I used to have one of those drill grinding attachments fitted to the bench just to the left of the grinder. The grinder in the picture, being right handed and not double ended would have difficulties mounting. When I sold my house, I left the grinder, drill sharpener and a 4" Paramo vise bolted to the bench. I miss the vise.

Chris

Correctly set up the Picador jig does produce a proper conical "roll" back-off.

Just as a Reliance does.

No surprise because when you get down to it the actual geometry of drill point movement is the same.

The issue with the Picador is that its simplified design gives a fixed roll back defined by drill point projection and the built in offsets of the jig. There is some built in variation to cover different drill sizes by the inherent change in drill point projection with size when using the proper set-up technique. The change in point height as drills get bigger also affects things slightly. The built in compromise is really only useable over the stated size range 1/8" to 1/2". Even then its getting a bit touchy when you get up to the large end. Fortunately with a 1/2" drill its easy enough to see if you haven't set it quite right and ground with insufficient back-off.

Tweaking the 5-to-5 cutting edge angle a touch also varies the back off. But its sensitive. The 5-to-5 alignment is what generates the conical back-off by pivoting about a vertical pivot with fixed offset.

A non standard helix messes the setting method up good and proper!

It is what it is. When used with care, understanding and respect for its limitations a Picador jig works well. But its very much made down to a price. Mine was, I think, around £5 in 1975 or 6 (ish) when I was earning £600 or £700 a year. Pushing half a weeks "trainee / apprentice job" wages. So it had to be saved up for. A Reliance was maybe three or four times the price. Not gonna happen! I suspect the younger members of our community have no appreciation of how expensive stuff used to be and how affordability constrained us.

If you want a straight back-off set it up like a General / Spiralux with the cutting edges vertical. Which obviously cannot work.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 10/08/2021 09:37:49

Clive has mentioned costs ! Good drill bits always were expensive, so just throwing them away because they were blunt wasn't an option, last price I saw for a dormer 1/2" was £27. Now a days you can buy a FULL set for much less than that, but what quality ? Keep the drill sharpener, and learn to use it, I think I have the instructions for one if you need it.

Blunt drills will be hard or immpossible to use, consume much more power , and if working in stainless it will cause workhardening, then only carbide will finish the job. Poorly sharpened drills will – if they cut at all make an oversize hole, careful measurement and maths may give a clue to what size !!!

With working in stainless and to sizes over an 1" I bought a secondhand Brierley ZB 32 drill grinder – I found lots of new friends I never knew I had ! Noel

Hi Noel, they had a much older but similar machine to the one you mention at my last place of employment, don't know what make it was, but did a brilliant job.

Regards Nick.

Clive, With the greatest respect, and it may just be me, but I just can't visualise how a Picador jig can possibly produce a correct drill point backing off as it just strokes horizontally across the wheel Yes, it is traversing radially but it is hardly 'rolling' as in the Reliance action which, I guess, is attempting to reproduce the upward rolling action which is used when hand sharpening larger drills. (BTW, I could never get the hang of doing this satisfactorily) However, being in possession of both types of jigs, the next time I have a few minutes to spare in the workshop I will try sharpening a drill with both jigs and compare the results. You may be quite right, but I have always used the Reliance as I assumed the rolling action against the wheel produced a better backing-off.

Chris

The Picador holds the drill with its lips at a 5-to-5 angle, not vertically in line with the pivot axis. So the basic horizontal swing around the pivot axis is tilted with respect to the drill lip line hence the conical grind.

If the drill lip is positioned vertically, parallel to the pivot axis, then it won't produce a proper back off as its a pure circular arc. Albeit offset from the pivot point so the grind goes deeper, generating some back off, as the drill swings.

The General / Sipralux et al variety, which is the version usually cloned, get the same effect by tilting the pivot axis.

Actually the conical point generated is a section of an ellipse but the arc is short enough that the difference won't be noticed.

It only works for the correct combination of drill lip twist or pivot axis tilt away from vertical and side offset of the drill centre line from the pivot axis. Even then the satisfactory drill size range for any correct pair is limited.

Somewhere on the internet there is a nice animation of what happens when you take sections of a cone at various angles showing how the cut end goes from circular when the cut is parallel to the base to elliptical. Tripped over that some years back and had the light-bulb moment as to how the Picador, and the General / Spiralux devices, worked.

Clive