Storing Larger Drills
(Added 04/20/1999)
Ronald Thibault

    I recently bought some drill bits in the 1/2" to 1" range, and needed a way to protect them from being nicked or damaged when not in use.  One way would have been to drill a block of wood to accept the shanks, and store them standing up in this block.  I do not have room in my tool box for this method (no drawers tall enough), and leaving them on top of something is an invitation to have them knocked on the floor.  After looking at my scrap bin I came up with the idea of using PVC pipe, as shown in the figure below.

    The larger tube is 1" PVC pipe and the smaller is 1/2" thin wall pipe.  The 1/2" pipe can hold up to about 5/8" bits, and the 1" (naturally enough) up to 1".  There is 1" thin wall that could hold probably up to 1 1/8" bits.
    One end cap is permanently glued to the pipe.  I drilled a hole in the fixed cap so that air pressure would not make removing the other cap difficult.  I also stuffed a wad of paper towel down into the fixed cap end to protect the tip of the bit.  To make life easier, as can be seen, I also marked the drill size and arrows pointing to the removable cap on the outside of each holder.

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