Made in USA doesn't always guarantee quality.. NOS drill bit with poor grind.

If that drill is from a US maker, I would send it back to them for a replacement. They should do the right thing ...
 
Why not tell us who the seller is? If they sell a poor quality product, it would be helpful to
know to avoid them.
 
Not necessarily a bad grind.

Having just sharpened over 100 drills, I can say that I saw similar grinds on some. They were all sharpened with exactly the same relief, as controlled by the Drill Doctor jig but some looked enough like that the photo above for me to question whether they had been ground correctly.

The gotcha was the the grind of the web was such that the diameter at the trailing edge of the web was considerably smaller than at the cutting edge. This made the edge formed between the web and the 59º angle appear to climb up at the trailing edge. An optical illusion.

Its something that I never noticed in all the past years because I sharpened by hand and eye, rocking the drill as I turned it to give what looked like the proper relief. I never bothered to check new drills for relief as they were new. When they went dull or they chipped , I resharpened them.

The definitive test would be to blue the tip with a Sharpie and drill a hole. If the back of the web is interfering, the bluing will be worn off.
 
Not necessarily a bad grind.

Having just sharpened over 100 drills, I can say that I saw similar grinds on some. They were all sharpened with exactly the same relief, as controlled by the Drill Doctor jig but some looked enough like that the photo above for me to question whether they had been ground correctly.

The gotcha was the the grind of the web was such that the diameter at the trailing edge of the web was considerably smaller than at the cutting edge. This made the edge formed between the web and the 59º angle appear to climb up at the trailing edge. An optical illusion.

Its something that I never noticed in all the past years because I sharpened by hand and eye, rocking the drill as I turned it to give what looked like the proper relief. I never bothered to check new drills for relief as they were new. When they went dull or they chipped , I resharpened them.

The definitive test would be to blue the tip with a Sharpie and drill a hole. If the back of the web is interfering, the bluing will be worn off.
so none of my drills look like that normally, and this one was not cutting in AL , I just needed a pilot for a bigger hole. I spotted, went to use an unused (not commonly needed) bit, and it wouldn't go. I looked at it and saw that.

There's no need to mention the brand... Again this bit is from the 60s.. It's one from my dad's numbered index.

The point is we bash China, and we still had our own FUBARs
 
Not cutting is another definitive test.

But you are correct that "Made on USA" doesn't guarantee quality. I have run across far too many examples of that. About eight years ago, I bought a specialty brass plumbing fitting. that boasted "Made in USA". The pipe threads absolutely wouldn't seal. I tried Teflon tape, pipe dope, Teflon pipe dope and nothing worked. I finally got a seal by using epoxy. Back when American cars were built in America, there were numerous examples of missing fasteners and poorly fitted body parts. The building trades aren't immune either. I witnessed construction where a whole row of sheathing staples missed the stud.The same with subflooring nails missing the floor joists.

That doesn't even begin to get into all the engineering screwups. I once considered becoming a manufacturing/engineering flaw troubleshooter for hire. Doing critical analyses of processes and products. It could have been a profitable business.
 
There was plenty of poor quality from USA in the past but it generally was addressed by the manufacturer, right here in this country.
They found an empty beer can inside the door of my father's new 1968 chevy. Mom had an iron that was tossed because they could catch fire(read, were catching)
I don't remember them getting anything from the company or store.
 
Can't tell that much from the photo. Can you zoom in and focus on the tip?

This will work in most browsers-

Right click on the image.
Click "Open image", or "open image in new tab".
If it didn't take you there, go to the new tab.

You'll see the image. Click it one time. If it's not being shown "full size", this will make it so.
Next, CTRL+Scroll UP will expand the image. You can wring out whatever detail is available from wherever you got the image from.
 
This will work in most browsers-

Right click on the image.
Click "Open image", or "open image in new tab".
If it didn't take you there, go to the new tab.

You'll see the image. Click it one time. If it's not being shown "full size", this will make it so.
Next, CTRL+Scroll UP will expand the image. You can wring out whatever detail is available from wherever you got the image from.
it doesn't work, the resolution is already compromised, the file is much smaller.
 
it doesn't work, the resolution is already compromised, the file is much smaller.
Sorry, maybe I should have been more clear. This will in no way "put back" any detail that is lost, but what it does is A, bring back any level of detail that the hosting website might have, but not display right in the thread. And you can expand it to see it better. On my 15 inch display I can expand the drill bit picture from 3/8 of an inch to two inches (without forcing anything beyond the simple browser functions) Your picture, on this display, looks best at about 3/4 of an inch wide. On other displays, that would probably be vastly different. Yeah, the detail wasn't important here, but I'll be the first to confess to having a forest for the trees moment. I didn't mean to imply that it "fixes" the loss from the original, but whatever is allowed at whatever website anyone is visiting, it really helps to see all that can be seen. A lot of people just aren't aware of that. That was all I was getting at.
 
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