Artu - 1/4In x 4-1/8In Multi-Purpose Drill Bit

I have bought several Artu bits and wanted to share my experience with these products. I am not a professional machinist, so please forgive any minor technical errors in terms. I am simply a guy whose hobbies involve a lot of milling and drilling in hardened steel. Consequently, my hobbies also involve quite a bit of cursing when things don’t go as planned.The first Artu bit I purchased was needed to remove a piece of tool steel from a barrel pin hole. In an attempt to remove a barrel pin, the tapered part of the tooling became lodged in the hole when a pin moved too far under the force of a shop press. Essentially, I had a piece of tool steel stuck in one side of the hole and a pin made from hardened steel stuck in the other side of the hole.I tried cutting through the tool steel with a cobalt endmill to relieve the pressure holding it in. All this did was destroy the cobalt bit. I found a video online of a locksmith cutting through tool steel with Artu bits and decided to give them a try. Also in this video, the locksmith discussed the requirements for making Artu bits cut through hardened steel: rigid tool holding, moderate drill speed, low pressure, lots of cutting fluid, and patience.I am happy to report that this worked quite well. It took about an hour to drill a 9/32” hole through the tool steel with a vertical mill. A drill press would have been sufficient, but I needed the hole in a fairly precise location to prevent damaging the work piece.I have another issue that I recently ordered Artu bits to address. In the process of drilling out a long swell-neck rivet, I broke an HSS drill bit off in the hole. Rather than ruining an endmill bit trying to get it out, I ordered the 7-piece Artu bit set. This should not be nearly as difficult of a process, but I intend to follow the same plan as before: vertical mill, moderate drill speed, low pressure, lots of cutting fluid, and patience. After my previous experience with Artu, I have the utmost faith that this will work just as well.Considering that these are not cheap bits, I do not believe that they are intended for daily use. Instead, I believe that they are intended for jobs where HSS can’t quite cut it.My personal experience with this product has been very positive. Artu bits work exactly as described and are quite capable of cutting through hardened steel.I hope you find this review helpful.

I base this review SOLELY on a head to head comparison to Bosch's Masonry bits I purchased at Home Depot. The Artu "multi purpose bits" basically have a masonry tip profile which uses a welded tungsten carbide spade as a welded insert on a drill bit (not sure of the metal composition). Both had been hammerdrilled into a thick plate of toolhardened steel. The Bosch was resharpened very often until the tungsten carbide point was useless. The Artu took its place and was abused far more than the Bosch bit. The Artu didn't require as frequent sharpening and if so only required very light passes as the chips and abrasions did not form as deep as it did on the Bosch. I was very impressed with this bit. I still enjoy self centering cobalt bits for wider purposes but for anything that demands greater durability will have to be dealt with these Artu multipurpose bits. These were my first time using them (even thought they were a gimmick) but I very impressed by the quality.

I used this to drill through cast iron. Holes were already threaded and I needed to enlarge them. Standard drill bit hung up and just spun in drill so I ordered this based on reviews and it worked great. Drilled through without getting stuck. Was able to easily enlarge holes to the size I needed.

This drill drilled a hole in the harden steel garden tool with easy. It drilled the hole that another well know brand couldn’t. I would recommend this drill bit for harden steel drilling.

Made in China. Not American Made. I have a very nice set of Rodman & Company drill bits which have been awesome. I broke a 1/8" and lost a 5/32" After doing a lot of research these seemed to be the closest multi-purpose bits to match my set which is no longer available. With a name like Artu USA and it being a "Woman owned business" with ties back to German, you would think these would be made in the USA or Germany. Nope, China. Buy these if you don't mind, but they are expensive for being made in China.

Use these in an auger style hand drill for drilling small pilot holes in sandstone rock. We use these for the top in several underground coal mines and they function great. The lifespan for us is approximately 1 month (36 holes per week at 1.5" deep) before needing resharpening. After 2 rounds of sharpening, we generally toss them in the scrap metal bin and buy more.

Didn’t last very long.

Touted as USA but in reality it’s European materials that are “assembled” in China. What a joke. Gimme some good ol’ AMERICAN made steel!