NCFS partners with Bits & Bits

Bits & Bits offers up some exciting options

Every now and then a surprise shows up in life. Something unexepcted, refreshing, inspiring. Rarely is that surprise ever a tool or tooling company. Look, I’m not trying to date myself here, but I’ve been on the woodworking road for 32 years now and have done it every working day of my life for the last 24 of those years. There isn’t much in the woodworking sphere that I haven’t had my hands on – and I can spot a cheap gimick a mile away.

But I’m not cynical. I welcome surprises and keep a keen eye out for the good ones. Last week, one of those surprises came into the shop. A business in Oregon called Bits & Bits reached out to us. We have quite a frew students from out their way that have shared thier experiences about learning at NCFS with them – so they thought they would reach out to us. Apparently they have been in making cutters for more than 40 years, primarily for the Dental industry. In recent years (sorry I don’t know specifics yet, but I will in time), they have broadened their scope to include CNC tooling. What’s fascinating, is that they make a small (by industrial standards), but high-grade selection of their own carbide bits. Their offerings include some fasicnating takes on spiral up, down, and compression cutters with interesting flute options like the 1/2″ shank, 3/8″ cut diameter, .22″ short upcut compression bit.

To make a good thing better, they have a proprietary multi-layer coating they call Astra HP that claims to be much harder and longer wearing than competitors’ coatings. It also claims to be super thin at 0.3µ (for reference most human hair is between 40-55µ), and more slick than previous coatings. Put another way, this means cleaner finish cutting due to the sharp edge lasting longe thanks to lower friction and improved heat resistance. To make all this even better, they have partnered with old favorite in the woodworking world, Whiteside, to offer Astra HP coatings on some thier most popular tooling. Another interesting thing to note is that because of their history in the dental industry, they make numerous small diameter bits that work well for luthiery, engraving, jewerly, and other fine detail machining. It is also important to note that Bits & Bits prices are competitive with manufacturers of similar tooling.

They sent us a box of various tools to try out, and we have been more than impressed. So while they don’t offer every tool imaginable, they do have a great catalog with very stong offerings of outstanding tools. This is clearly a win all around for our school and for you. To add a little bit more to all of this, they are going to offer steep discounts to NCFS students, details to come!