It was the turn of one of the apprentices to begin learning about some of the workshop equipment and this began with inductions on all the drilling machines and the workshop manager gave him his familiarity and safety procedures and set him up for some hole drilling.
I spotted it straight away, he put a left hand drill bit in the drill and set said apprentice off on drilling a series of holes into a prepared test piece of strap; he fastened it down correctly and double checked it, he set the speed and set off drilling. After several minutes of getting nowhere he asked if the bit was blunt and was told to take it out and check it, which he did and said it was sharp. He put it back into the chuck and after several more minutes he had done little more than polish the pop marks in the strap and couldn't figure out why.
Nobody told him it was a left hand bit and he went home wondering why he couldn't drill a hole with a sharp bit.
I spotted it straight away, he put a left hand drill bit in the drill and set said apprentice off on drilling a series of holes into a prepared test piece of strap; he fastened it down correctly and double checked it, he set the speed and set off drilling. After several minutes of getting nowhere he asked if the bit was blunt and was told to take it out and check it, which he did and said it was sharp. He put it back into the chuck and after several more minutes he had done little more than polish the pop marks in the strap and couldn't figure out why.
Nobody told him it was a left hand bit and he went home wondering why he couldn't drill a hole with a sharp bit.