Most shops manage drill bits the same way they manage soap in the bathroom — they use them until they're gone, then get more. Nobody tracks how many holes each bit cuts, when it went out for service, how much it cost to run, or whether it came back from sharpening performing better or worse than when it left.
That's leaving money on the table. A drill tracking system doesn't have to be complicated. Here's a practical version that works for a job shop running anywhere from a few machines to a few dozen.
Why Tracking Pays Off
The goal isn't paperwork for its own sake. It's catching three things that cost real money:
- Running dull tools: A drill that should have been resharpened two hundred holes ago is burning spindle time, producing out-of-tolerance holes, and generating scrap. Without tracking, you have no objective trigger for pull — just feel.
- Over-resharpening: Sending drills out before they're done is waste in the opposite direction. Every regrind costs money and shortens the bit. With no data, shops often send everything out at once regardless of actual condition.
- Hidden failure modes: If a specific diameter keeps breaking in a specific material, tracking exposes the pattern. Without records, it looks random.
The Minimum Viable System: A Spreadsheet
You don't need software. A shared spreadsheet — Google Sheets works fine, as does a printed binder if your shop doesn't run computers at the bench — with these columns handles 90% of what you need:
- Tool ID: A permanent identifier marked on the drill shank with an engraver or paint pen. One ID per bit, permanently assigned.
- Size / Type: Diameter, series (jobber, screw machine, stub), material (HSS, cobalt, carbide), and point type (standard, split, parabolic).
- Date placed in service
- Job / material: What material it runs in, what program or part number it's assigned to.
- Holes cut: Running count. This can be estimated per shift if you don't want to count every hole — the goal is trend data, not exact numbers.
- Date pulled for service
- Service type: Regrind, reconditioning, or scrap.
- Returned / back in service date
- Notes: Any observed performance issues before pull — thrust increase, oversized holes, chatter, breakage.
Setting Service Intervals
Service intervals are the number of holes (or linear inches drilled) at which you pull a bit regardless of apparent condition. They exist because by the time you can feel a drill is dull, it's been dull for a while and has already been cutting less than optimal.
For new bits or new materials, start with a conservative interval and adjust based on what you observe at the tip when you pull them. If bits are coming in sharp at the pull interval, extend it. If they're showing significant wear, tighten it.
Rough starting points for HSS in common materials:
- Mild steel (1018, A36): 300–500 holes per cycle for smaller diameters, fewer for 1/2" and up
- Alloy steel (4140, 4340): 150–250 holes
- Stainless (304, 316): 100–200 holes, cobalt preferred
- Aluminum: 800–1200+ holes (aluminum is easy on HSS, pull on surface finish degradation)
- Cast iron: 200–400 holes depending on hardness
These are starting points, not constants. Your feed/speed, coolant, hole depth-to-diameter ratio, and fixturing all affect wear rate significantly.
Tagging and Identification
The system falls apart if you can't identify which bit is which. Options that work in a shop environment:
Electric engraver: Scribe an ID on the shank. Permanent, survives coolant and handling. Best method for bits 3/16" and larger where there's shank space.
Color-coded dot tags: Small adhesive dots (the kind used in office supplies) near the shank. Not permanent but fast for rotation systems where drills cycle frequently. Color can indicate size range or machine assignment.
Dedicated trays with labeled slots: The bit's position is its ID. Works for a small dedicated crib with fixed inventory. Breaks down if bits get mixed up, which they will.
For most job shops, combining engraving with a logbook works best. Engrave once, track forever.
Crib vs. Machine Assignment
Decide whether drills live in a central crib, assigned to specific machines, or both. Each approach has tradeoffs:
Central crib: Better visibility into total inventory and condition. Easier to manage service batches. Slower for machinists who have to walk to the crib. Works well if the crib is run by a dedicated person who checks condition before issue.
Machine-assigned: Faster for the machinist. Easier to match specific drill performance to specific machines. Harder to maintain consistent service intervals — every machine becomes its own silo.
A hybrid approach is common: high-use production drills live at the machine, specialty sizes live in the crib, and everything gets logged through one central system.
The Batch Service Model
If you're using a mail-in sharpening service, you're not sending one bit at a time — you're accumulating a batch. Your tracking system should make batching easy: a simple list of tool IDs pulled since the last shipment, what service each needs, and a turnaround date expectation.
Track the cost per bit per service cycle. Over a year, this tells you whether you're getting more out of each bit through regular service than you'd spend replacing it — which is the whole economic argument for resharpening in the first place.
The most important thing is to start. An imperfect system you actually use beats a perfect system that lives in a spreadsheet nobody opens. Even a simple paper log that records pull dates and service counts will surface patterns that improve your decisions within a quarter.