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Drill bit

cutting tools used to create cylindrical holes

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ335283
Source-derived summary

A drill bit is a cutting tool used with a drill to remove material and create holes, typically with a circular cross-section. Drill bits are available in various sizes and shapes, designed to produce different types of holes in a wide range of materials. To function, drill bits are usually mounted in a drill, which provides the rotational force needed to cut into the workpiece. The drill will grasp the upper end of a bit called the shank in the chuck.

Drills come in standardized drill bit sizes. A comprehensive drill bit and tap size chart lists metric and imperial sized drills alongside the required screw tap sizes. There are also certain specialized drill bits that can create holes with a non-circular cross-section.

Characteristics

Drill geometry has several characteristics:

The spiral (or rate of twist) in the drill bit controls the rate of chip removal. A fast spiral (high twist rate or "compact flute") drill bit is used in high feed rate applications under low spindle speeds, where removal of a large volume of chips is required. Low spiral (low twist rate or "elongated flute") drill bits are used in cutting applications where high cutting speeds are traditionally used, and where the material has a tendency to gall on the bit or otherwise clog the hole, such as aluminum or copper.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Drill bit” as cutting tools used to create cylindrical holes. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Drill, cutting and tools.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 221-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Drill, cutting and tools providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Drill bit”, the useful work is to connect “cutting tools used to create cylindrical holes” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q335283. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Drill bit” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.