Cordless Drill Accessories

The cordless drill driver is a powerful and versatile tool by itself. With drill accessories, it works even better. The drill bits makes holes large and small. The drive bits handle variety of fasteners. The adapters extend the bit's compatibility with the drill tool. The drill jigs control the precision of drilling. The replacement battery and charger fulfill the maintenance of the tool. These are some of the common accessories for the cordless drill.

Drill Bits and Screw Bits

There are boxes upon boxes of mechanical fasteners in hardware stores. The variety and abundance of these screws, nuts, bolts, and anchors create a wide variety of driver bits for the cordless drill tool.

The mechanical fasteners have changed the landscape of work industry. Disappeared are the carpenters who craft dovetail and mortise-tenon joints. In their place are workers who know about screws and bits, and who pull the trigger of a cordless tool to get the job done in the shortest time.

DRIVER BITS

Screw Bits
The screw bits conform to the shapes and geometry of the screw heads in order to drive them. These shapes range from the simple slot to the common philips to the rare square or star or hex styles. Due to all these possible varieties, the screw bits typically are packaged in a set that contain all the styles.

Double-ended Screw Bits
Double-ended bit can drive two style of screw heads - a convenience that's quite useful. Usually one end is flat head and the other philips head. The flat head (slot-head) screw is not commonly used nowadays. But older doors or cabinets do have them. With double-ended bit, less time is wasted in looking for right bit while in the middle of work.

DRILL BITS

Hex-shank Bit
The round drill bit with a standard 1/4" hex shank can fit easily into a driver tool like the screw bit. By loading this bit into the hex head of an impact driver, the impact driver becomes a drill! Bit changing becomes much easier, just pull one out and put the other in. Drill a pilot hole, switch bit, drive a screw in, done. Thanks to the hex shank.

Round Twist Bit
With diameters from 1/16" at the smallest to about 1/4" at the largest, the round drill (twist) bits come typically in a set. Quality sets have bits that go up to 3/8" or even 1/2". That is also the maximum jaw opening capacity of a cordless drill. A lot of cordless drills have 3/8" opening capacity. That is generally adequate. By using spade bit or forstner bit, these drill can make holes larger than 3/8". However, if only round twist bits is available, then the 1/2" cordless drill is better because it can accept larger bits.

Spade Bit
The spade bit is a usual big-hole drill bit, like auger bit or forstner bit. It's the least costly of the three and not very efficient at drilling. But if you drill big holes, of opening larger than 3/8" diameter, only occasionally, then this bit will do the job adequately.

Auger Bit
The auger drill bit is highly suitable for drilling big and deep holes, from 0.5" to 1.5" in diameters. The design comes from an old past. The "Archimedes Screw" inside the Dutch windmills is an instance of this helical design. The auger bit and the brace together allow people to drill holes on logs and posts without any electricity.

Forstner Bit
This is a modern large-hole drill bit. The forstner bit can be as big as 3" in diameter. It won't drill as deeply as the time-honored auger bit. Many cabinets nowadays employ euro-hinges for doors, The hinge sinker bit, which is very similar to the forstner bit, is utilized to create holes for euro-hinges.

Masonry Bit
The thread and the tip of the masonry drill bit are expressly made for drilling in asphalt, rock, or brick. Holes drilled in masonry accept anchors that can securely fasten large structures. The masonry bit's tip has tungsten carbide cutting edge in order to chop through the hard material without getting dull quickly.

Vix Bit
The specialty application of the vix bit is to drill pilot holes for hinges. Because the placements of the hinges determine whether a door is installed straight or not, the pilot holes have to be located precisely. That calls for the vix bit. It self-centers as it drills so that the placement is on the dot. This applies to the ordinary hinges only. The euro-hinges are less demanding about placement.

Glass/Tile Bit
Glass is so stiff that most drill bits cannot drill through it. They only crack it. For the rare situation that requires making holes in glass, this diamond-coated bit will perform the job. When drilling, make sure the glass is wholly supported, apply low pressure and drill in slow speed, and add coolant often.

ADAPTER

Quick-Release Bit Holder
This adapter has a mechanical device that opens or closes easily to release or secure the bit. Its 1/4" opening accepts bits with standard hex shank. The keyless chuck of the cordless drill makes bit changing simple already. This holder makes it even more so. A simple pull or twist, and the bit comes off or locks in. Highly convenient for tasks that keep switching between driving and drilling.

Socket Bit Adaptor
The socket adaptor attaches to the standard bit holder at the one end, and hooks up to a socket at the other end. This adaptor makes the cordless drill to work like a socket wrench. It is not a good idea, though, to use it to take out the lug nuts of a tire. But for driving common bolts and nuts and lag screws, this works terrific.

Other Accessories

Replacement Battery
The lifeblood of the cordless drill is the battery. Sooner or later, after repeated usage, the battery will hold the charge no longer. When that happens, the pain of needing the battery to recharge after running it only a few minutes is hard to bear. And a replacement battery is needed, even if it's about as expensive as the cordless drill itself. Isn't that familiar? Something like the price of replacement printer ink cartridge?

That's why getting a quality battery is a good choice. Because it lasts a great deal longer than an inferior one. The extended life span of a quality battery wholly justifies its higher price tag. Generic low-priced replacement battery is not a bargain. The better way to replace a battery is to get the exact same model or superior from the company that manufactures the cordless drill.

Drill Bit Sharpener
If only the world is ideal: a line is straight, love is simple, and the drill bit is always sharp. But really, can a drill bit stay sharp forever? When drilling a hole, the metal bit digs out wooden tissue; the wood tissue scrapes out metal particles - action and reaction, said Mr. Newton.

So the drill bit gets dull, saved by sharpening only. A skilled woodworker once demonstrated sharpening a drill bit by hand on a grinding wheel. His hand, pressing gently the tip of the bit square on the wheel, gracefully spin and glide it in a helical sweep. A few strokes and the bit was back to normal sharpness!

That skill was reached slowly, accompanied by occasional bruised fingers and ruined bits and stifled curses along the way. Now a short cut is available: a drill bit sharpening machine, from Drill Doctor and other companies. Notice the crisp work of a sharp drill bit, and recall a hole brutalized by a dull bit, then the value of a high-quality drill bit sharpener speaks for itself.

Dowelling Jig
Many older cabinets and furniture were built with dowel joints, due to its simplicity of construction and the strength of structure. You drill holes on the joining pieces, insert dowel pins and add glue, and that's basically a dowel joint.

Dowel joints are much stronger than joints fashioned by screws, but not as strong as the mortise-tenon joints. To create a dowel joint, a dowelling jig is needed. It ensures alignment. The holes must be aligned perfectly for the dowels to go in neat and tight.

Without the doweling jig, the alignment will miss, the dowel pins can't go in completely, and the joint will be poor or even fail. With the jig, a dowel joint can be made in a small fraction of the time it takes to make a mortise-tenon joint. That saves a lot of time and labor, and the joint is very good.