Bosch’s Diablo power tool accessory brand has launched a new Metal Demon drill bit that they claim is the ultimate solution for efficient metal drilling.
The new Diablo metal drill bit is described as a 3-in-1 bit solution that can take the place of black oxide, titanium, and cobalt drill bits.
It’s designed for drilling into mild steel, hardened steel, and stainless steel.
Advertisement
Diablo Metal Demon drill bits feature a “thermal shield” protective coating.
Diablo says the coating helps their new drill bit deliver “up to 30X longer life in metal” when compared to “standard” metal drill bits.
It features a “hybrid” 130° split point tip.
Diablo calls their new drill bits “the future of metal drilling.”
There’s no information regarding which sizes will be available, where the drill bits will be sold, or how much they’ll cost.
Discussion
Diablo says their new drill bits will “revolutionize your tool box,” and that the new Metal Demon bits are “another industry first.”
Advertisement
They remind me of the Spyder Mach-Blue drill bit sets that are available at Lowe’s. The Spyder bits are impact-rated and advertised as drilling “up to 100X more holes than titanium or black oxide drill bits.” Spyder also says they work “up to 8X faster.”
The Metal Demon bits are different – they have 3 flats for use with cordless drill chucks, and the “Thermal Shield” coating looks to only apply to the tip area.
Diablo says:
Long-gone are the days where users must purchase and carry multiple bit types (Titanium, Cobalt, and Black Oxide), the Metal Demon bit’s exclusive design brings a one-bit solution for any application ensuring maximum durability, speed, and precision.
With these being a “3-in-1” drill bit type, I can see that being possible. But they also say Metal Demon drill bits are “the industry’s first all-in-one bit to tackle all metals.”
However, Spyder says their Mach-Blue drill bits are:
Ideal for drilling wood with nails, stainless steel, mild steel, aluminum, stacked materials and other tough to drill alloys
That sounds like Mach-Blue is also intended to be an all-in-one type of metal drill bit.
Diablo says the new bit is a “one-bit solution for any application” that will “redefine metal drilling.” Do you think that’s what they’ve got here?
Diablo Video
Following is the official announcement video. No further details have been made available yet.
Nathan
I normally love Diablo items. I use their saw blades almost exclusively and their sanding things.
But this almost seems like Bosch marketing group got a hold on the press releases
Nathan
Hit send too soon. Is the 130 degree thing any different from any other? I don’t think so. The coating sounds like a mix of ti nitride and a ceramic.
I’d consider a set but I often use oxide bits and consider them throwaway. I had some cobalt bits for common sizes where it made sense
Jared
118 and 135 are more common.
S
“Long-gone are the days where users must purchase and carry multiple bit types (Titanium, Cobalt, and Black Oxide)”
Um, who was doing that?
Also, the only thing I found black oxide to be useful for was short term wood drilling….
Until a change in employment meant company-supplied drill bits, I kept to the titanium drill bits. The cobalt seemed more brittle, within sharpness advantage, and black oxide just never worked…
Used to be I only bought DeWalt titanium bits, but then Milwaukee and DeWalt swapped who was making black oxide and who made titanium, so now I buy Milwaukee.
I’ve tried the Spyderco bits a few times, but the price doesn’t justify the additional performance. They are better, just not 2-3 times the cost per bit better.
I’ll likely give these a try when they come out, I love diablo’s versions of oscillating tool blades, and hole saws. I’m just not sure they’re as durable as they claim.
Don Julio
It’s confusing to navigate the many claims for this or that drill bit. Has anyone here tried the Spyder Mach Blue? They sure are shiny and blue, but are they any good or just another gimmick?
s
i have. they do stay sharper longer. but in the construction i was doing at the time, i had more issues with drill bits failing due to breakage than dulling.
they did not resist breakage any different than dewalt, milwaukee, masterforce, or rigid bits–their cryo bits tend to break the fastest. and none of them like concrete.
the spyderco’s tend to excel at metals, especially harder metals like i-beams, or stainless, and stay sharper longer–about twice the life span of a titanium. but they’re also about double the cost of the same size titanium drill bits.
i ended up placing them in my magic trick bag for situations that required the higher durability, and used titanium versions instead whenever possible for other materials. it really came down to the increased cost.
David
Magic trick bag!!! 🤣 I don’t have that, but I do have a “if all else fails here’s the expensive stuff” drawer
Kevin Jensen
I’m sold on the Spyder Mach Blue Drill bits . I’ve used them and there impressive.
Noah
I bought a set of the spider blue bits when they were released and I’ve been very impressed, though I mostly use them for wood. I actually save them for my high end stuff because they drill such clean holes so efficiently. My only gripe with them is the aluminum base isn’t magnetic so they fall out of my installation driver’s offset head but that’s kind of an odd and unusual problem to have.
I have a set of German made DeWalt cobalt bits for metal, since they are too aggressive for wood, and I use titanium Milwaukee bits for every day things. If Spyder made bigger blue bit sets with more sizes I’d probably ditch the Milwaukee bits altogether.
James
If it’s just a coating, that goes away the 1st time you sharpen the bit.
LK
you guys are sharpening your bits?
Jason
It does not go away. The facet of the bit you’re taking metal away from is the relief angle. The coating is still at the cutting edge.
Anton
if you aren’t touching cutting edge during sharpening then why even call it sharpening? And if you do touch cutting edge then all the coating is gone.
Bruce
I have up on retail drill bits years ago. Cle-line jobber sets usually last me a couple of years of normal drilling or a bad day on tough jobs. I usually end up replacing the 1/4, 5/16, and 3/8 a couple of times in those two years. They’ll do normal steel and wood just fine, I don’t feel bad using them through drywall. I’ve got some exotics next to the drill press for doing knife steel, but it’s always fully annealed for drilling operations.
Farkleberry
It does everything better, and all in one product?
Hopefully their marketing is more effective than Pert Plus has been.
Metal coatings are real, but as pointed out, probably make the most sense for those who throw away drill bits when they dull.
I’m no metallurgist, but there seems to be a tradeoff where hard = brittle, and choosing the right bit for the job will yield the best results.
I’m sure there are drilling situations where a Swiss Army bit set makes the most sense, but with all the different drill bit types, is it really that big a deal to buy a set of cobalts for hard or thick steel? If these are significantly more $ than cheapies (titanium, black oxide), no thanks.
Ryan Guldbrandsen
Hard can = brittle. There are steels out there that are hard and tough(not brittle). But that = $. They use those steels to make the current drill bits. 😅
Cobalt steel drill bits arent made out of a super duper fancy special metal. M42 is common. Its a very old steel. Its not a powder metallurgy steel. Which would raise toughness, but also significantly raise price.
Once you go so hard and so tough. You begin to run out things to actually make the product. Especially something as complex as a drill bit. They need to be made fast to get out to the consumer for consumption.
Tempering the bits is another thing. They have to have hot hardness. So the tempering temperatures need to be pretty high, so they know the drill bit will not exceed the temperature of the temper while a person uses it with in reason.
Drill bits can become brittle because the tempering temperature was exceeded. Ruining its temper. There’s no coming back from that. Once it’s exceeded. The bit is going to break.
Ive seen people turn bits bright orange. That drill bit has exceeded the tempering temperature. 😅
If it turns red(~900°), the temper was likely exceeded. Orange is worse, yellow is worser, white is worsest.
They are likely tempered at 800-900°. Higher end ones with a specific steel (every different type of steel has a different tempering temperature) may go as high as 1100-1200° while retaining the needed hardness and toughness.
Keep the heat down on your bits and they will last you much much longer.
Im not a metallurgist. But I know steel well enough to say I know steel well enough. 😂🤷
Peter D Fox
More over priced consumer grade junk.
Unless you are able to control speed and feed you probably not see and real improvements over good quality industrial grade HSS bits. Fancy coating might help sell more sets but for hand held drilling applications you will get better results from using reasonable speeds and feeds along with using whatever flavor of cutting lube you prefer.
Once you get into production grade tooling then the fancy coatings do start to make a real difference but even then there is no universal solution just trade offs between longer life and higher cost.
All of my bit are made in USA HSS with most being plain 118 degree black oxide. the only time they have ever let me down had been drilling hard steel. which is you really need to than stepping up to carbide is probably a better answer.
Jared
The claim that these work on hardened steel seems different. Hopefully that’s reflecting something actually different about these.
Kinda begs the question though – how hard?
I’ve got some carbide bits for drilling hard steel. They’re too brittle to be much use in a hand drill though. Is Diablo saying they’ve got something hard-enough for hardened steel, but still usable in a handheld drill? I’d try that.
Stuart
That’s been the trend in recent years, with other brands – such as Milwaukee with Red Helix Cobalt – launching tougher bits for drilling into hard metal.
Ryan
I’ve had the Mach Blue bits for about a year now. 90% of what I drill is steel. In angle iron, I find that they cut cleaner holes and can do so with less downward pressure compared to the equivalent Cobalt bit from Milwaukee or Bosch. I am also a fan of their “Blue Goo” cutting fluid, which is more or less rebranded Anchorlube.
My only complaint is that there are size skips. Recently, I needed a 23/64 bit and they were nowhere to be found. I’d like to see more coverage and open stock vs. pushing of combo kits. This is probably driven more by Lowe’s than Spyder themselves.
Travis
Having been deeply involved in the machining trade for many years, adds like this make me smile a little bit.
Drilling hard steel?
Hard like 45Rockwell C (HRC) or hard like 58HRC? For 45 HRC, cobalt drills work pretty well (most cobalt drills have a 135 deg drill point, vs 118 fo general HSS drills). Drilling that 58HRC though- carbide is your best friend, with a very stable spindle and work holding behind it, along with lots of cutting fluid/coolant.
There have been dramatic advances in affordable carbides in the past 10 years- the titanium carbide in metal cutting circular saw blades allows 2000+ surface foot per minute (sfm) through steel for example. Coatings have drasticLly improved as well.
I guess the most difficult part for me to swallow on stuff.like this is just the generality of it- instead of “we have a new coating that extends drill life by 30%” it is “best drill evar!!!”.
Goodie
Any time I hear “Game-changing”, “disruptive”, or “refined” these days I stop listening. The terms are over-used today.
Sinclair
It says that it last 30% longer than standard drill bits. Why was the comparison made between standard as opposed to colbalt. The advertising department failed on that one!
Amatts
Nobody seems to know basic tool maintenance anymore like a good set pf m2 drills that can be sharpen/ground accordingly this stuff looks like crap ..,…
JR Ramos
I really don’t like the direction Diablo has gone with the marketing fluff. It’d be ok if they also provided real details but they seem to leave it out these days.
What steel are these made from? If they aren’t cobalt or some new-fangled powder matrix then they aren’t going to be doing stainless very well. The high-heat hardness is what matters there and is why people manage to toast otherwise great M2 or M3 or M7 steels doing stainless. M42 is the ticket for controlled machine drilling (if not carbide or something), M35 for hand drilling with some tradeoffs.
The 130° point is…well that’s a weird quandry. Why? Maybe that’s still enough to perform in stainless but the 135° was arrived at specifically to get “under” the cut during rotation to prevent work hardening when drilling stainless. The guys that developed these geometries weren’t dummies and while most of it is many many decades old at this point, the designs work and is why they haven’t changed much at all over the years. If the 130 is ok it’d be interesting to see some data/tests…or maybe it’s just ok-enough for typical applications like stainless sinks and thinner sheet material. Those with non-adjustable bit sharpening jigs won’t like the new point angle but I guess it wouldn’t take long to take them down to 135.
Fast-flute but not parabolic…I wonder how that is an “optimized flute design”, but ok. They don’t say how small they go with the splits and conveniently their images (if they are real bits and not scaled graphics) have the four smallest sizes turned sideways so you can’t see the tip, but many companies do not/can not split tips below 3/32 – that takes a little more time and better grinding machines so you only see smaller splits in higher quality bits.
I don’t think “efficient” goes with hand drilling, but whatever. And coatings aren’t always much of a benefit for typical hand drilling (they can be very nice in wood and plastics, though…they do very little at the cutting tip, though, and usually wear away in a use or three in the places that matter).
I think this is fluff, even if they turn out to be decent/average bits. Possibly counting on a magic coating and a proprietary weird point angle to make people believe it’s really better.
But what kind of steeeeeeel are they….!? That matters.
Stuart
I’m guessing there will be soon be sponsored influencers telling you how much better these drills are.
JR Ramos
Such is the state of the world now….
I doubt I’ll “audition” these bits but if they’re reasonably priced maybe I’ll pick up a consumable size. It’d be fun to test a few for free, though. The diy (to include many tradesmen, actually) drill bit world is kind of a funny thing. Maybe it comes from trying to make “unskilled” drill bit users happier or maybe it’s just typical “evolution” to drive new sales or larger margins, but it tends to gloss over just how good old school designs are when used correctly. We’ve seen some nice improvements in wood boring bits and forstner bits, and those new-ish turbo step twist bits are a really nice variation for metal drilling, but good old high quality standard twist bits are just fine for 100% of drilling needs where twist bits are the choice.
I also had to laugh at their “no more oblong holes” claim. That’s funny. With a twist bit. I’m sure they’re not looking at this from a precision or a machinist standpoint, but come on.