Drill Bit Sharpener 2020 Test: Which Brand Wins?
In our 2020 test we compared 7 drill bit sharpener options head to head. Drill Doctor 750X came out on top. See the measured results, the runner-up, the budget pick, and a link to the full test video.
Drill Doctor 750X
Price shown in test: $128.99
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General Tools drill grinding attachment
Price shown in test: $21.59
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The quick take
The short version of why each pick lands where it does, built straight from the measured results.
“The Drill Doctor, in my opinion, is by far the best sharpener we tested, but it's also the most expensive.”
The measured results
Every number below is read straight from the test. Products are listed in the order they finished.
Spec
- 1Drill Doctor 750X
sharpens to 118 degrees standard, or 135 degrees with a split point (one notch to the right); comes with a storage bag
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)
requires a separate bench grinder; handles 1/8 to 3/4 in (3 to 19 mm) bits
- 3Goodsmann1/8
to 25/64 in (3 to 10 mm) range
- 4Bosch2.5
to 10 mm range, sharpens to 118 degrees; unusually, this sharpener is powered by the user's own hand drill rather than having its own motor
- 5Chicago Electric
handles bit sizes 9/64 to 25/64 in, sharpens carbon steel and high-speed steel bits, 120 grit stone
- 6Drill Master
sharpens twist drill sizes 2 mm up to 12.5 mm and 5/64 up to 1/2 in, 100 grit grinding stone, requires a power drill running 2,000 to 3,500 RPM
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)not tested
Drilling test at 77 lb force, half-inch mild steel
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)1 minute 51 seconds
(the first time-to-beat baseline among the sharpened bits)
- 3Goodsmann1 minute 21 seconds
(a new best time at that point, beating General Tools' 1:51)
- 4Bosch2 minutes 4 seconds
- 5Chicago Electric
did better than the Drill Master but still did not do a good job; per the closing recap, 'neither one of the Harbor Freight sharpened drills were able to get the job done'
- 6Drill Master
did not do a good job; per the closing recap, 'neither one of the Harbor Freight sharpened drills were able to get the job done'
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)43 seconds
as first stated, though the closing recap gives 41 seconds for the same test; both figures kept, not reconciled, a minor internal discrepancy
- 1Drill Doctor 750Xnot tested
Drilling test at 120 lb force
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)50 seconds
- 3Goodsmann31 seconds2nd
described as a very impressive job, second fastest of all bits tested including the DeWalt reference bit
- 4Bosch53 seconds
described as much better than the first attempt
- 5Chicago Electric
not retested in the transcript; appears to have been dropped from the second round, likely because it already failed to complete the first drilling test, not a transcript/caption gap
- 6Drill Master
the resulting hole was about the same depth as the first attempt, i.e. still did not meaningfully drill through despite the extra 40 lb of force
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)23 seconds
the fastest of every bit tested including all six sharpened bits
- 1Drill Doctor 750Xnot tested
Time to sharpen
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)
quick, but the narrator overheated/discolored the drill from being too aggressive with the grinder
- 3Goodsmannabout8 minutes
described as definitely faster than Chicago Electric's 15 minutes
- 4Bosch
pretty quick, around 5 minutes
- 5Chicago Electricabout15 minutes
for one twist drill, described as a little on the slow side; narrator also reported difficulty getting the grinding stone height to properly contact the bit per the printed instructions
- 6Drill Master
took a while to figure out how to use; the narrator had to rotate the bit during sharpening (deviating from the stated procedure) to form the leading edge and chisel, and the result still did not look great
- 1Drill Doctor 750Xnot tested
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)not tested
All measurements (6 more)+
Time to sharpen, 118 deg standard point
- 1Drill Doctor 750Xunder2 minutes
called the fastest sharpening time of all units tested
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)not tested
- 3Goodsmannnot tested
- 4Boschnot tested
- 5Chicago Electricnot tested
- 6Drill Masternot tested
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)not tested
Time to sharpen, 135 deg split point
- 1Drill Doctor 750X
took quite a bit more time than the standard point, exact figure not given
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)not tested
- 3Goodsmannnot tested
- 4Boschnot tested
- 5Chicago Electricnot tested
- 6Drill Masternot tested
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)not tested
Drilling test at 77 lb force, half-inch mild steel, 118 deg bit
- 1Drill Doctor 750X1 minute 30 seconds
(recap figure: 96 seconds, a small discrepancy from the roughly-90-second spoken figure, kept as stated rather than reconciled)
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)not tested
- 3Goodsmannnot tested
- 4Boschnot tested
- 5Chicago Electricnot tested
- 6Drill Masternot tested
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)not tested
Drilling test at 77 lb force, 135 deg split point bit
- 1Drill Doctor 750X1 minute 21 seconds
(recap figure: 81 seconds), described as very impressive
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)not tested
- 3Goodsmannnot tested
- 4Boschnot tested
- 5Chicago Electricnot tested
- 6Drill Masternot tested
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)not tested
Drilling test at 120 lb force, 118 deg bit
- 1Drill Doctor 750X49 seconds
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)not tested
- 3Goodsmannnot tested
- 4Boschnot tested
- 5Chicago Electricnot tested
- 6Drill Masternot tested
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)not tested
Drilling test at 120 lb force, 135 deg split point bit
- 1Drill Doctor 750X40 seconds
- 2General Tools drill grinding attachment (bench grinder accessory)not tested
- 3Goodsmannnot tested
- 4Boschnot tested
- 5Chicago Electricnot tested
- 6Drill Masternot tested
- 7DeWalt (factory-sharpened reference bit, not a sharpener under test)not tested
How it was tested
- time to sharpen a twist drill bit (excluding equipment setup time)
- resulting sharpened-bit drilling speed through half-inch mild steel at 77 lb downward force
- resulting sharpened-bit drilling speed through half-inch mild steel at 120 lb downward force
- visual quality of the resulting leading edge and chisel
- ease of use / learning curve
“The Drill Doctor, in my opinion, is by far the best sharpener we tested, but it's also the most expensive.”
Data notes and caveats
Six drill bit sharpener brands tested (Drill Doctor, General Tools, Goodsmann, Bosch, Chicago Electric, Drill Master), plus a factory-pre-sharpened DeWalt bit used purely as a speed benchmark/reference, not as a competing sharpener (excluded from winner/runnerUp/budgetPick consideration since the category is drill bit sharpeners, not twist drill bits). No explicit numeric 1st/2nd/3rd leaderboard was given for the sharpeners as a whole the way some other Project Farm videos do, so runnerUp is left null rather than inferred from qualitative praise; product rank order in this file follows the totality of the narrator's own qualitative and quantitative statements (Drill Doctor best overall; General Tools explicitly called a great value; Goodsmann's drilling results were strong but its sharpening process was called very slow with a limited size range; Bosch moderate; Chicago Electric and Drill Master both explicitly failed to produce a bit sharp enough to complete the drilling test). Two small internal numeric discrepancies flagged rather than corrected: the DeWalt reference bit's first drilling time is stated as both 43 and 41 seconds, and the Drill Doctor 118-degree drilling time is stated as both about 90 seconds ('1 minute 30 seconds') and 96 seconds in the closing recap. Chicago Electric was not retested in the second (120 lb) drilling round; treated as a likely consequence of its first-round failure rather than a caption gap, since Drill Master (the other failed sharpener) WAS retested and still failed.
