Drill bit shank from 0 to 7. The Morse taper allows the bit to be mounted directly into the spindle of a drill, lathe tailstock, or (with the use of adapters) into the spindle of milling machines. It is a self-locking (or "self holding") taper of approximately 5/8" per foot that allows the torque to be transferred to the drill bit by the friction between the taper shank and the socket. The tang at the end of the taper is only for ejecting the drill bit from the spindle, with the aid of a drift. The arbor of a drill chuck is often
Drill bit and spur drill bits are also effective in soft plastic. Conventional twist drill bits in a hand drill, where the hole axis is not maintained throughout the operation, have a tendency to smear the edges of the hole through side friction as the drill bit vibrates. In metal, the lip and spur drill bit is confined to drilling only the thinnest and softest sheet metals in a drill press. The bits have an extremely fast cutting tool geometry: no point angle and a large (considering the flat cutting edge) lip angle causes the edges to take a very aggressive cut