60 VIDEO HOW TO SHARPEN SPADE BITS

I really like spade bits and that's because they work so well

Although most woodworkers shun them. They have a prejudice against them because unless they're sharpened properly

they're not going to work all that well. So I want to show you a few things that you can do with spade bits

and most importantly how you can get them really sharp so that they cut as cleanly as any other kind of fine woodworking bit you might try

The beauty of a spade bit is that you can regrind it to different configurations

That's something you can't do with any other kinds of bit. Take a look here. This is a stock spade bit

It's sharp and ready to go and it'll work just fine for you. It's got some spurs on the corners to help it cut more cleanly

But what if you want a hole that's just slightly smaller than a standard size

Well this half inch bit, as you can see here along the edges, I've regrounded

So it's slightly smaller than the half inch size and it works perfectly with tapered wooden plugs

These bits here are for situations where I couldn't tolerate the long spur

the long central spur coming through on the bottom edge of the hole

because it would have punched through a visible part of the project. So I simply ground down the central spur

and made it work much like any other kind of shallow bit

like a Forstner bit or a sawtooth bit. So let's go to the grinder now

and I'm going to show you some of the tricks that let me do great things with spade bits

This three quarter inch spade bit has never been sharpened before but it's working a little sad

It's lost some of the edge. The crispness of the spurs is gone

But I can reestablish all that and make this bit cut at least as good as new

with a few minutes at the grinder. The trick is to get the angle of the tool rest just right

You want the leading edge of the cutting surfaces to be slightly higher than the trailing edges

And because these bits turn clockwise, that means that the left side of the cutter, as it lays on the tool rest here

needs to be angled upwards, as you can see here on the wheel

Now I'm not going to worry about the presence of the spurs. They're going to get ground off

But in practice, that's not going to matter at all. So come and take a close look and watch how I grind one side and then the other

So I'm going to switch on the grinder. I'm using a cool running stone to minimize heat buildup

And I'm going to be grinding the left side. Because my blade, my tool rest is tilted this way, I want to grind like this, very gently

I don't want to grind like this because that will angle the cutter in exactly the opposite direction that I want

So I just put a few contact points here, flip over. A few here

I don't need to complete it all in one go. I only want to touch the wheel briefly to minimize heat buildup

Now that is a nicely sharpened spade bit. And it's going to work really well

Now the edges of this bit are still pretty sharp. I don't need to redo them again

But if I was going to reduce the size of hole that the drill made or if I wanted to crispen up the edges

I would also use the same angle to just gently grind one side of the bit and then the other

Until the newly ground surface existed all the way across the edge of the bit

So now I've got my newly sharpened spade bit in the drill press. This is a block of ash

And let's just see how well it cuts. What you end up with is a nice, clean, crisp hole of whatever size you want

And spade bits are cheap to buy too