How to use a nail drill, for beginners

What speed to actually use

Drills advertise 30,000 and 35,000 RPM. You will almost never need either. The practical rule is: the lowest speed that cuts. If the bit is skating across the surface without removing anything, increase a little. If it is grabbing or jumping, decrease.

Higher speed removes more material per second, which is helpful when you are grinding through a thick acrylic set and dangerous when you are half a millimeter from a nail bed. NAILS Magazine flags too-high RPM specifically as a cause of nicks, slips and rings of fire.

An LCD speed readout is genuinely useful here, because it lets you find a setting that worked and return to it rather than guessing at a dial position.

How to hold it, and why it matters

Hold the handpiece like a pen, not like a screwdriver. A pen grip gives you fine control from your fingers; a fist grip moves your whole forearm and makes small adjustments impossible.

Then anchor. Rest your little finger — the one on the hand holding the drill — against the hand you are working on. Now both hands move together, so a bump to one is a bump to both and the bit stays where it is relative to the nail. Every professional does this and almost no beginner does.

This is also the argument for a foot pedal: it lets you start and stop without breaking that anchored position.

Using a drill around the cuticle

This is the highest-risk area and the one people most want to tidy. Three rules.

Safety bit only. A rounded, uncut top is what keeps the bit from cutting skin when it inevitably touches it.

Check your rotation direction. Run the wrong way and the bit pulls toward the sidewall instead of away from it. This is the single most common way people catch skin.

Do not cut the cuticle. The AAD advises skipping cuticle trimming altogether, because cuticles are a barrier against infection. A drill around the cuticle should be removing product that has crept onto the skin line, not the cuticle itself.

Changing bits

1. Turn the drill off. Not idling — off.
2. Release the chuck. Most home drills use a twist collar; some use a small lever. Turn it until the bit slides freely.
3. Pull the bit straight out. If it resists, the chuck is not fully released. Never force it.
4. Insert the new bit fully, right up to the shoulder. A partly-inserted bit wobbles, and wobble is vibration you cannot control.
5. Lock the chuck and test at low speed before touching a nail.

All the drills on this site take the standard 3/32 in shank, so bits are interchangeable between them. See the grit guide for which bit to fit.

Practice on something that is not your hand

Apply gel to an old press-on tip and remove it with the drill. Ten minutes of this teaches you what the bit feels like cutting product, what it sounds like when it is about to break through, and how quickly material disappears — at zero cost.

Then start on a thumb rather than a little finger. Thumbs have the most nail plate and the most margin for error, and by the time you reach the awkward nails you will have found your speed.