I realise now what's been happening

[Bill Wright]

I've been doing a job that involves drilling a lot of small holes in steel and aluminium. The sizes vary. I started to get irritated because the boxes of small HSS drill bits (I buy in boxes of ten) were starting to be empty, yet there were lots of drills scattered around, on the shelf behind the pedestal drill, all over the place in fact, and I was having to use a micrometer just to be sure I had the correct drill in my hand, since the sizes on the shanks aren't always legible or even present. With metric and imperial sizes in use there was scope for confusion.

I decided to buy a 24 drawer storage unit, one with 250mm deep drawers, and use it for my HSS drills.

When the unit arrived I set about the task of putting the drill bits in it. This meant sorting them out. The first move was to collect together all the drill bits. I found that I had a great many boxes of drills, in a variety of locations. Some of them I had forgotten about many years ago. As well as handfuls of small sizes, sitting on shelves, there were three boxes 5" x 6" x 4" labelled 'metric', 'imperial', and 'special'. These boxes were full. The contents were jumbled. There were also two incomplete sets of imperial drills (1/16" to 1/2" in 1/32" increments) and two incomplete sets of metric drills (1mm to 13mm in 0.5mm increments). There was a rotary drill dispenser containing some but not all imperial sizes from 1/16" to 3/8", including, oddly, two 64th inch sizes.

Clearly, what has been happening for the last 40 years is that I have taken a drill from a box of ten, used it, then not bothered to find the box to replace it. The box has become empty so I have bought another one. For instance, I found six boxes of 1/8" drills, each containing between three and ten drills, plus something like fifty loose 1/8" drills. Some other commonly used sizes were the same. I found three full boxes of 10mm drills, plus about a dozen loose ones.

Incidentally I have been surprised at the variation in size of drills that should all be the same. For instance I have drills labelled 1/8" on the shank that are various diameters from 2.85 to 3.25mm.

Bill

[harryagain]

As an apprentice, the first thing I made was a drill gauge.

[Brian Gaff]

Some drills also have different cutting angles and some even have a narrower or wider bit neer the tip itself. I don't know if these designs mean the drill was intended to drill different material though, as as you yourself find, their original boxes are long gone. Some drills are soft and some very brittle and one cannot tell until one either bends or breaks. it is a minefield really. I don't get to drill much these days but I have definitely succumbed to what you describe in the past. Brian

[DerbyBorn]

A drill gauge is only a rough check unless you have carefully calibrated it somehow. Use a micrometer.

[Nightjar]

Particularly if you have every number drill from 30 to 80 and need to tell the smaller ones apart.

[DerbyBorn]

"Nightjar wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Apprentices made drill gauges in order to get practice and making something. They were not intended to be used!!

[Broadback]

The ones I have that are wider near the tip are masonry drills.

[meow2222]

If you treat them all as having millimetre sizes its practical to just have one series containing all the sizes, regardless of what sizing system they initially used. This way the old imperial stuff becomes a lot more useful IME.

NT

[Davey]

You are asking them to change system from Imperial to metric, so they have become confused. Once an Imperial, always an Imperial. None of that foreign rubbish.

[rick]

On 17/10/2014 10:09, "Nightjar

[Bill Wright]

regardless of what sizing system they initially used. This way the old imperial stuff becomes a lot more useful IME.

I was vaguely thinking that. I'm going to put the sizes in metric on the labels for the imperial drills.

Bill

[polygonum]

What we need is not labels - but some mark that can be seen without any difficulty. I would have said colour (e.g. using different colours for

1, 2, ...9, and, maybe a collar colour for 0.5 increments), but that wouldn't be acceptable for the colour blind or, sometimes, in challenging illumination. So perhaps a combination of colours and rings?

And what we desperately want NOT to have is every flaming manufacturer coming up with their own, distinct, an incompatible scheme.

[tony sayer]

Nowt wrong with the resistor colour code, done that with some tools here a Yellow means an M4 nut driver etc;)...

[Bill Wright]

I've done it now.

Bill

[polygonum]

No specific argument with that but a newly agreed universal number-to-colour mapping which was thoroughly tested (check usability by the colour blind, ensure that the colours can be made with safe and stable pigments/dyes, etc.) would be needed - even if based on resistors.

[meow2222]

How do you propose to make a colour coding system accessible to the colour blind? It partially works in electronics due to the E series, but no such equivalent either exists or is likely to ever exist with drill bits.

I believe safe stable pigments have existed and been in widespread use for a very long time now.

NT

[Graham.]

The first thing we had to make in metalwork at school was an aluminium protector for the jaws of a vice.

The first thing we had to make at college, was a soldering heat-shunt which were copper extensions soldered to the jaws of a crocodile clip.

[F Murtz]

We had to make a complete commutator in trade school, I wonder if they still do?

[Johny B Good]

I've gained the impression that the fad in Woodwork/Metalwork/CDT (or whatever its latest trendy name now happens to be for the subject) must be a hanging hook strip for all those kitchen utensils that have a hole in the end of their handles specifically for the purpose of allowing them to be hung on such hooks.

I'm drawn to this conclusion simply by the total and utter absence of such hook strips in all the shops selling kitchen utensils so obviously crying out for such a hook strip.

This leads me to believe that the "Education Mafia" have 'leaned' on the makers or suppliers in order to protect this "concession" in this section of the market in simple to make 'useful pieces of work' so that the children can proudly show off their 'masterpiece' to their grateful parents.

Unfortunately, we have no grandchildren of suitable age that we can prevail upon to satisfy our desire for this niche item of kitchenware.

[Johny B Good]

Try telling that to Dave Ploughman in the "Disappearing Needles" thread. :-)