Metric drill bits in the USA

[manticore00]

Not sure if anyone else has had as much trouble as I have had trying to find metric drill bits in the USA that are inexpensive but I finally came across a set on Amazon and just received them today:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00APWL7CI/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[cthree]

McMaster Carr has them as well.

[Jon Chandler]

If you have a Diaso store (the Japanesse 100 yen store) nearby, check it out.  There are several in the Seattle area but I'm not sure how wide spread they are.  Most of the stuff in the store is US$1.50, but some things range up to about $10.

The stock in each store varies and it varies over time but they usually have individual and sets of drill bits, metric hex-key wrenches and lots of other tools.  They have a large variety of plastic enclosures, often good for project boxes or parts storage.  In general a lot of things you may find useful.

Many of the items are only labeled in Japanese, which may leave you pondering their intended function.

It's a great place to go when you need retail therapy. Twenty or thirty bucks scores you a shopping bag full of wonder.

They used to have assortments of metric bolts, nuts and washers but I haven't seen these recently.  It was nice to stock up on 3mm screws without paying insane prices.

[Jon Chandler]

Oops....sorry to get your hopes up...besides the 3400 Diaso stores in Japan, they seem to be located in Vancouver, BC, Canada, in the Seattle area and in California.

Definitely plan to visit one of these stores if you're in the area!

[SeanB]

Funny I have the exact opposite problem, in getting non metric screws and such. The plus is that all my local nut and bolt suppliers have them, and they are often cheaper old stock, and the tooling as well is often cheaper as well for the same reason. I have some industrial equipment from the USA, or old stuff that is 40 years old and is imperial sized. Strange in that the spares for the US made stuff comes from India, but is shipped to the USA and marked up, then sent back and marked up again. Often it is cheaper to just go and have it made one off at the engineering shop than to order the spares, unless where they use certain high hardness alloys or surface treatments.

[Stonent]

The Metric system is the Devil! My car gets 4 rods to the hogs-head and thats the way I likes it!

[staxquad]

the USA is our North American embarrassment

 

 

[Stonent]

the USA is our North American embarrassment

 

 

You don't know what you're talking aboot Canuck!
 

I think for the most part we're ok with MM and CM, but temperature isn't really fine grained enough for us yet.

Saying it's hot when it is 30 degrees out doesn't really encompass the full spectrum of heat in my opinion.

And KM, I dunno, that's going to be really hard. ~.6 miles, it's a bit much to have to think about while trying to drive.

[duskglow]

Wow, daiso seems pretty cool.  Next time I'm up in Federal Way, I'm going to have to give it a visit.

Wish they'd put one in Portland.  Though there's an Asian import store a mile or two away that's pretty cool.

[Jon Chandler]

Wow, daiso seems pretty cool.  Next time I'm up in Federal Way, I'm going to have to give it a visit.

Shopping at Diaso is a bit like shopping at a surplus store.  If you see something you like, buy it because it may be gone next time you're there.

Have fun if you go.

[cthree]

the USA is our North American embarrassment

 

 

You don't know what you're talking aboot Canuck!
 

I think for the most part we're ok with MM and CM, but temperature isn't really fine grained enough for us yet.

Saying it's hot when it is 30 degrees out doesn't really encompass the full spectrum of heat in my opinion.

And KM, I dunno, that's going to be really hard. ~.6 miles, it's a bit much to have to think about while trying to drive.

No shit, how big is a 2x4 in millimetres without looking it up and where do you find metric drill bits in Canada? Not Canadian Tire, that's for sure.

Canada: Just enough metric to claim we aren't American. We speak metric like we speak French

[edavid]

Just out of curiosity, what do you use them for?  I never thought of drill bits as being precision instruments, so I would think the nearest inch size would be close enough.

[SeanB]

Try tapping a thread having drilled the hole too big or too small. Too big and no thread, too small and you shatter the tap in the hole.

[manticore00]

Try tapping a thread having drilled the hole too big or too small. Too big and no thread, too small and you shatter the tap in the hole.

This and having to go at a hole with a file because the part is in metric and because I don't have a huge box of finely divide imperial bits I have to decide between a drill that's too large or too small.

Plus it supremely irritates me that the fractions in imperial sets jump around between denominator rather than sensibly using decimal values. To me it makes no sense to label 1/16, 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 rather than .0675, .125, .25 and .50 ... that's probably my OCD speaking though...

[SeanB]

I can buy metric drill bits in 0.05mm increments from 1mm to 14mm, though they are very expensive in some of the sizes that are not whole mm or 0.5mm increments.

[Jon Chandler]

Here's my haul from the Diaso Store the last time I went.

A set of five brad-point woodworking bits for $1.50

Five hex-drive twist bits for $1.50 each

Three spade bits for $1.50 each

[ftransform]

they need to abolish this fucking bullshit I hate having to deal with unit conversions.

its a fucking conspiracy made by the drill bit companies, their lobbying keeps the divide alive. their two sides of the same coin two different management teams both working for slavery incorporated

I want a fucking laser gun that makes holes in stuff already. I hate wasting my time looking for a god damn drill bit that I don't have and thinking about the money and time it would take to organize them.

same goes for bolts

*caliper companies are in on it too I bet

[nukie]

Calibration labs included!!!

[cthree]

I bought a huge box of drill bits, like up to 50 each of 50 sizes from 1/16" to 3/8" (not 50x 3/8" bits though!), a lifetime supply from some Costco or something.

Now I burn that shit like money, yo.

[Marc M.]

I'm in the US and probably do more work with metric stuff these days than imperial.  If I'm working on something already made, I use whatever system it was manufactured in.  For stuff I design, I lean towards metric because it's generally easier to work with when finding centerlines, the radius for a given diameter, etc.  The fact I have DRO's on my mill and lathe that switch units at the touch of a button makes it simple to use either system.  Conversion is easy - 25.4mm/Inch so using 25 is easy and close enough for estimates - a true 2x4 is about 50x100mm (they aren't actually 2x4 (lumber) so the metric equivalent will be smaller). 

As far as tooling, I don't have much in metric other than taps and dies and yet I've never had any problems tapping metric holes.  I use 115pc drill indexes that include fractional, letter, and wire sizes.  Even when tapping imperial threads you pretty much need sizes from all 3 series.  Granted it's a convoluted system but that's what's required to properly prep holes for tapping.  There is always a size that's close enough for every metric thread I've used (M3-M14). Granted it may not pass higher tolerance thread callouts, but close enough for casual work.  I just write the required imperial tap/clearance drills required right on the case of the tap so I don't have to figure it out every time.  One advantage of tapping metric threads is you don't have to have a chart to figure out what the proper sized metric drill to use.  You simply subtract the thread pitch from the diameter - M5 x .8 requires a 4.2mm hole.

In the end it just comes down to having the proper tools for the job.  Trying to use the wrong tool ends up in frustration and damage and costs a lot more in the long run.

...it supremely irritates me that the fractions in imperial sets jump around between denominator rather than sensibly using decimal values. To me it makes no sense to label 1/16, 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 rather than .0675, .125, .25 and .50 ... that's probably my OCD speaking though...

Strange, I've never seen a drill index that didn't have both the fractional and decimal sizes stamped on them.  Even the cheap set of Chinese drills my wife bought for me at a garage sale had both stamped, although they didn't line up with the drills .  Personally, it would drive me nuts not to have both fractional and decimal sizes stamped on it (I'll see your OCD and raise you my Aspergers ).

[ignator]

The problem with the metric system is the millimeter is the wrong size.  It's too big for cabinet work, and .1 mm is too small to see, and measure with a scale.  But 1/64 inch is ~15 thou of an inch, and I can do cabinet work with the unmagnified eye, and scale marked in 64ths. Really, why would anyone think that using the distance between the north and south pole of a oscillating prolate sphere, should form any sort of reference.  Didn't these same "thinkers" try to make a 10 hour day.  Ya, what thinkers came up with 12in/ft and 3ft/yd. But take any random distance, divide it into 10 equal parts using no measuring scales.  Do it in base two, by fold it in half, or use your eye, which is good at splitting things in half.  There's a reason for base2 fractions.For bigger distance measurement, the whole country was founded on miles, and land measurement is based on square miles.  There's no farmer/rancher in the US that's going to change to hectors.  Every abstract land description (the legal description) is in feet and inches, and references a corner of a township square mile indices.  This is why we started and then abandoned the metric system.I also work in both systems in the metal shop, and use the system of the item I'm fixing.  And I have both metric and SAE measurement tools, as I really don't like converting, mainly as ball bearings are metric. It's so much easier to keep a whole number in your head then a 5 digit decimal.For on subject, look at eBay, or Enco for import drill bits that are affordable. If you want stuff that can drill steel, they must be marked HSS (high speed steel). Inspect the drill bit, and verify it's stamped HSS on the shank.  There are ebay vendors that put this in their title, (tap and die) and they are retreading only tooling.  The other gimmic is TIN coating on drills.  Again if they are not marked HSS, they will be "soft as butter".  However I have a 115 piece set from Horrible Freight that is marked HSS on each bit, and they randomly meet this quality.

[c4757p]

The problem with the metric system is the millimeter is the wrong size.  It's too big for cabinet work, and .1 mm is too small to see, and measure with a scale.  But 1/64 inch is ~15 thou of an inch, and I can do cabinet work with the unmagnified eye, and scale marked in 64ths.

No scale is going to be perfect for everything.

Really, why would anyone think that using the distance between the north and south pole of a oscillating prolate sphere, should form any sort of reference.

The reference was chosen to fit the convenient (for them) size, not the other way around.

Didn't these same "thinkers" try to make a 10 hour day.

They had a bad idea, therefore all of their ideas are bad.

Ya, what thinkers came up with 12in/ft and 3ft/yd. But take any random distance, divide it into 10 equal parts using no measuring scales.  Do it in base two, by fold it in half, or use your eye, which is good at splitting things in half.

Because you are used to it. Personally, I'm quite good at estimating tenths by eye, because that's what I work in.

For bigger distance measurement, the whole country was founded on miles, and land measurement is based on square miles.  There's no farmer/rancher in the US that's going to change to hectors.  Every abstract land description (the legal description) is in feet and inches, and references a corner of a township square mile indices.

Who gives a shit if the farmers want to use it? They're free to use the surface area of their wife's pie dish as their basic unit of area if they like.

And Hector is the farmer, not the unit, which is "hectare".

It's so much easier to keep a whole number in your head then a 5 digit decimal.

You only end up with "5 digit decimals" in metric if you're measuring things that were built to Imperial units. If I'm working in metric, I'm not going to choose a size "914.4 mm" because it's close to the nice, round number "3 feet", I'll choose 900mm or 1m.

[WarSim]

I hope you do realize that metric drills come in 0.05 increments. That is under 2mill. 
Even if you tale all 6 imperial sets you still won't get as close to any given absolute size. 

Maybe you requirements are special, for me the fact that a .4mm bit is 123microns larger than 1/16" is not an issue. 
0.00001mm is 394 billionth on a inch, what are you making chairs for electrons!

[G7PSK]

 

No shit, how big is a 2x4 in millimetres without looking it up and where do you find metric drill bits in Canada? Not Canadian Tire, that's for sure.

Is that 2X4 planed or not. 

[george graves]

For PCB work.....I highly recommend https://www.drillbitcity.com/Default.asp

Really slow at responding to emails, but awesome products.  Fast shipping.  Great bits.  Super sharp.  And cheap.

No affiliation.