Support pad for a drill head and method for designing and manufacturing a support pad

A method of manufacturing a support pad for the drill head of a deep hole drilling machine, the method comprising the steps of:

• generating a virtual guide metric, the virtual guide metric including a curved path for defining a direction of travel of a grinding surface around a leading side surface and front surface of a support pad blank and a plurality of control surfaces intersecting with the path at separate discrete locations along its length, each control surface defining an angle of orientation of the grinding surface at each discrete location on the path;
• instructing a computer numerical control (CNC) grinding machine to associate the virtual guide metric with a support pad blank held in a workpiece holder of the CNC grinding machine;
• causing relative movement between a grinding surface of the CNC grinding machine and the support pad blank held in the workpiece holder according to the virtual guide metric;
• and
• during the relative movement, changing the angle of orientation of the grinding surface between adjacent control surfaces in a continuous manner.