Author Topic: Screw Machine length drill bits.  (Read 18604 times)

Offline Alan Haisley

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #15 on: June 09, 2013, 04:44:03 PM »
A couple of thoughts...

Good drills and a Darex  grinder last a lifetime if you don't abuse them, so it's probably good economics to buy the USA ones if affordable.

I understand that Ford and maybe Chevy are making excellent cars and competing worldwide, although I confess to a certain amount of schnitzellen in my garage.

My trivial problem with drills is how do you affordably store the dozens of loose extras rolling around in a drawer in an organized, sorted way? Is there some simple trick storage cabinet, little envelopes, etc.,??? after you spend hours sorting them into impossibly close sizes of numbered, fractional, metric, lettered, ugh.? After all, you need a hundred or more slots x 5 or 10 extras of a size.
Mosey,
Check craft stores. I have found packages of various sizes of zip lock poly bags. Of course writing indelibly on them may be a problem but the modern label makers seem to use a glue that sticks well to clean polyethelene

Offline Mosey

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #16 on: June 09, 2013, 05:45:25 PM »
Thanks Alan, but that doesn't solve it for me, as I am posessed with the absolute need to have things all in little solid compartments, like drill indexes. It's a disease I'm afraid. I tried the little baggies, but I'm still pining for that cabinet. I search the flea markets perpetually for old thread racks, drill cabinets, etc. Keep searching.
Mosey

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #17 on: June 09, 2013, 06:01:42 PM »
Mosey,
Huot makes drill dispensers but it requires a separate cabinet for #1-60, fractional, and lettter sizes. They are around $110-125 from MSC but you could perhaps modify the labeling on one to hold the various categories unless you keep spares for all 115 sizes.  In model work I rarely use letter sizes and if you are much the same would only require two cabinets maybe one for # sizes and one for fractional. Still pricey but Huot is good quality...just depends on how posessed you are :)

http://www.mscdirect.com/product/01691138?fromRR=Y

Bill

Offline Tin Falcon

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #18 on: June 09, 2013, 06:16:37 PM »
mosey:

Enco sells a wide variety  of Huot brand drill ,tap and mill file cabinets or storage units. The bad news is the one with 115 slots is about $ 400. each slot is large enough for a pacckage of each size. bit.
IMHO you do not need a spare of every size  only the sizes you use on a regular basis based on the screw sizes you use in the shop.
I have more drill bits can I can care to count. for now I am using  Plano lure boxes from wall mart. a bag with 4  3600 utility trays is $25 and you can get various trays as well in the fishing dept.

not perfect solution but better than dumped in coffee cans.
Tin

Offline mklotz

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #19 on: June 09, 2013, 06:32:36 PM »
Thanks Alan, but that doesn't solve it for me, as I am posessed with the absolute need to have things all in little solid compartments, like drill indexes. It's a disease I'm afraid. I tried the little baggies, but I'm still pining for that cabinet. I search the flea markets perpetually for old thread racks, drill cabinets, etc. Keep searching.
Mosey

They have some real solid medications for that level of OCD now. :)

Somewhere I've seen rolls of corrugated aluminum with a wavelength similar to that of corrugated cardboard.  Line a drawer with that and put one drill per corrugation.  With a bit of luck you'll be able to have your drills take up an order of magnitude more room than they would if stored conventionally.
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Offline Alan Haisley

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #20 on: June 09, 2013, 06:49:16 PM »
Another possibility: my wife takes about 300 different medications per day. That means that every few weeks a little clear orange plastic pill vial becomes available. So far I am using them to hold some screws and nuts but they are certainly big enough to hold at least screw machine sized drills. I can't see needing anything for multiple bits over 1/4" and for the little ones they can hold a lot.
If you are in a hurry there are suppliers on the internet that will sell you a case of the things for $100-$200 or so and then you would have a thousand or so containers. (Looks like some suppliers will sell in less than case lots.)
Alan
 

Offline steamer

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #21 on: June 09, 2013, 06:53:47 PM »
Thanks Alan, but that doesn't solve it for me, as I am posessed with the absolute need to have things all in little solid compartments, like drill indexes. It's a disease I'm afraid. I tried the little baggies, but I'm still pining for that cabinet. I search the flea markets perpetually for old thread racks, drill cabinets, etc. Keep searching.
Mosey

Mosey,

I did this with my Taps under 1/2"
It has a screw machine drill for tap drill size and clearance drill size, the tap and a die all in little labeled boxes
It is handy to bring the little container to what ever machine I need it on.....then dump it all back in and put it in the drawer.





Dave
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Offline steamer

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #22 on: June 09, 2013, 06:59:15 PM »
I believe I got the boxes from a company called "Timesavers" that sells to the clock and watch makers trade.

http://timesavers.com/search.html?q=storage+box&go=Search

Dave
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Offline Dave Otto

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #23 on: June 09, 2013, 07:55:44 PM »
Lista makes some nice drawer hardware for their cabinets. The trays come in 3x3, 3x6, and 6x6; also in two different depths. The dividers also come is several different styles.


This is an old post office stamp cabinet that my dad purchased at an auction years ago. The beautiful oak construction was under a nice coat of government gray paint. I used a table saw to cut the dividers so they would completely  fill the drawer. They are 6x6 and snap together so the row across the back and one down the right side got cut to fit.



Here is another drawer with some of the trays holding dies. I want to do the other side of the drawer with the dividers to hold the broaches.


I purchased these items online but I can’t remember exactly where without doing some digging.

The drill bits are kept in Huot Drawer cabinets; I’m also a big fan of screw machine length drills. It is actually quite rare that I reach for the jobbers drills.

Dave

Bluechip

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #24 on: June 09, 2013, 08:00:18 PM »
Plastic specimen tubes, similar to these ??

http://www.nhbs.com/plastic_specimen_tubes_tefno_162905.html

Got most of my titchy electronic bits in them.

And drill bits, although I've long ago abandoned fractional/number/letter sizes for metric by 0.1mm.

Dave BC

Online Jo

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #25 on: June 09, 2013, 08:15:18 PM »
My guys your drawers are very neat. I have mine hoarded in old secretarial cabinets lined with some nice ridged industrial floor tiles to stop things rolling around.

At the back of the first draw you will see that I have just upgraded my metric taps storage to have taps of the same size kept together with best post office elastic bands. The boys are very nice as they use two colours of elastic bands on the post so I use one colour on the odd sizes and the other for even sizes.

In case you are wondering those little square boxes hold my coventry die head dies. I used it the first time today and it is lovely  :embarassed:

Jo
« Last Edit: June 09, 2013, 08:18:20 PM by Jo »
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Offline Mosey

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #26 on: June 10, 2013, 01:09:14 AM »
Well, well, well.
It seems as though my affliction is epidemic. Very comforting, indeed. I do have those lista trays (ripoff other brand) but mine are fixed, not having those pop in dividers. Ok, here I come.
It's those library/secretarial cabinets with a thousand drawers that I lust for.
I have all of my usual taps in a molded plastic holder with the fines on 1 side, coarse the other, and the clearance and tap drills stuck in molded spots next to each tap, so I have it all in a single holder, and it goes to the machine.

I went down to my local "strangest hardware store in the world" one day, and cleaned out all of the never use em sizes to fill up my holder.
Marv, it is incumbent on you to remember where you saw the corrugated aluminum sheet, please.
The drills surplus comes about because I bought a cheap metal cabinet that had a drawer full of miscellaneous drill bits, dozens of them, no charge. Some are top quality, all US made. I keep all of my drills in Huot indexes, from #80 to 1/2", letter, number, and metric (you know, those funny sized ones from over there).
He who has the best tool storage wins.
This has been a fruitful thread, keep the ideas coming and thank you.
Mosey

Offline Tennessee Whiskey

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #27 on: June 10, 2013, 02:57:02 AM »
Mosey, I'm with you on Dave Otto's oak cabinet. I'm longing for an old oak dentist cabinet. The drawers are lined with some green stone material that is concaved to hold little tools and there's bunches of drawers.

Eric

Offline mklotz

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #28 on: June 10, 2013, 04:56:19 PM »
Marv, it is incumbent on you to remember where you saw the corrugated aluminum sheet, please.

I remember now where I saw the stuff.  It was a roll of corrugated aluminum lawn edging material in one of the big box stores (HD, Lowes, Osh, etc.).  About six inches high, one presses it into the ground to define the border between lawn and flower bed.  I'm sure a Google will turn the stuff up, perhaps in plastic as well as aluminum.


MicroMark has miniature aluminum corrugated roofing material - suitable for the tiny drills...

http://www.micromark.com/corrugated-aluminum-sheet-030-inch-spacing,9294.html
Regards, Marv
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Offline Mosey

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Re: Screw Machine length drill bits.
« Reply #29 on: June 10, 2013, 08:22:31 PM »
Thanks Marv, I'm on it.
In the meantime, here is my tap rack for the ordinaries, a little drawer for the Balax's (or is it bollocks), with a home-made milled plexiglas insert, and the counterfeit Lista trays holding my horde of F1 goodies. I just need to fill up the F1 tray!



 

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