Drill bit storage

[quixoticgeek]

I have a growing collection of drill bits. Some are in sets that were bought as a set with the odd bit missing. Others are misc bits that I've acquired over the years. It's becoming a disorganised mess. I'm guessing this isn't a problem that's unique to me. So thought I'd ask, How does everyone else store their drill bits? What about screw driver bits?

Thanks

J

 

[AJB Temple]

In a big tin.

 

[t8hants]

Several big tins, and one day I will sort metric from imperial, although the site set is a proper set backed up with replacements from the big tins.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I bought one of the cheapish 170 - 180 piece drill bit sets about 15 years ago. It's quite possibly the soundest investment I ever made toolwise - every few months I sit with a vernier and all the loose bits, measure them and put them back. With all the odd ones that appeared in the interim I have more now than I started with.

 

[John15]

I keep my 2 - 12mm bits in a block of wood drilled to fit the bit sizes.

John

 

[SteveF]

dedicated drawer for each size

 

[AndyT]

A Cadbury chocolate fingers tin.
Two flat cardboard boxes.
Some sets in their own boxes.
Two drilled blocks.
Two bit rolls.
A big plastic organiser box.

And yes, I do have room for a few more!

 

[paulm]

I keep my 2 - 12mm bits in a block of wood drilled to fit the bit sizes.

John

This, plus a plastic organiser box for larger ones, masonry, spade bits etc.

 

[novocaine]

I have an index or 2 for jobbers bits and other sprial bits
Masonary bits live in a dormer bit box you get when you buy your bits by the 10s
Spades, brad points and butterflys live in a box or organiser
Sds live in a big organiser box
Brace and spoon bits live in a wooden tray with the brace
Forstners are in a wooden box (hilka sell their bits in one, the bits are ok but they've been replaced with better over the years)
Oddities live in a tray in the draw under the drill press (things like drill and counter sink combinations and reground spades)
Hole saws live in a wall bin at the moment but I need to find something better for them, Masonary hole saws have their own protective case
spares live in another draw under the drill press table, of which there is around 600 twist drills from 0.5mm up to 16mm and similar range in imperial, all on dormer boxes sorted by size.

I have a lot of drill bits, I inherited my fathers supply as well as my own.

for normal people without an addiction, buy or build a drill index.

 

[woodpig]

I keep most of my drill bits and milling cutters etc in clip lock food containers with rust preventative paper. Similarly other tooling is also kept in airtight containers as well. My current workshop is nice and dry but previous workshops have been quite damp so they've been very useful to keep rust at bay.

 

[Blockplane]

Thanks for the reminder to have a sort out Far too many of mine are loose in a plastic icecream box.
Brace bits are in a wooden block, although I have run out of holes and 1/2 doz latest purchases are next to them on the shelf. Long ones only used on lathe are on the shelf above the lathe.
Forstners and screwsinks in the boxes they came in.

Goes off to drill some holes in blocks of wood...............................

 

[paulrockliffe]

Mine are all in a big pile awaiting the building of some drawers under my drill press. I keep looking for some sort of cheap flexible drawer dividers to use for this, but not found anything. I'm leaning towards using the router to carve trays into a piece of softwood with a cove bit and fitting those with drawer slides.

 

[woodpig]

I should have said but my regular use bits are in plastic or alloy drill indexes. These only cost a few pounds each from places like Buck & Hickman or Cromwell tools. Some other sets are in home made MDF blocks with Dymo labels.

 

[MusicMan]

This drill bit storage rack saves me more time than anything else in the workshop. The problem with bought storage racks is that they just have one hole for each size. This doesn't allow you to keep spares, which are needed especially for smaller sizes, also they can't cope with several intermediate sizes of drills.

So in this rack, there are five holes for drills up to 7 mm then 3 holes for the larger ones. Every other set of holes is exact for the main metric sizes, 2, 3, 4 etc mm. (Smaller than 2 mm are in a drawer with my musical instrument tools). In between the main sizes I have holes for the intermediate sizes, e.g. 9.2, 9.4 etc mm but all intermediate sizes go in the same rank.

The rack is made of hardwood (old teak flooring), which means the holes are precise enough to act as fairly accurate gauges, e.g. for screw clearance holes. It is next to the drill of course, so it is easy to put drill bits back in the right place after use. After several months use, I find that I rarely find more than two or three drill bits not put away, and then it only takes a few seconds to do so.

I suppose it took an hour or two to make, but has saved me far more than that in both time and frustration.

 

[Lons]

Several big tins, and one day I will sort metric from imperial, although the site set is a proper set backed up with replacements from the big tins.

:lol: :lol: :lol: Was doing that very thing only yesterday, got fed up after an hour. As most things it wa sgoing to be a 10 #-o minute job.
Started off to replenish the ones in my 3 drill bit boxes and had to cleen the shafts to see the sizes properly

 

[Lons]

dedicated drawer for each size

That could be a lot of drawers :wink:

 

[MikeJhn]

Having got fed up with rummaging around in ice cream containers and biscuit tins, I threw all my old drill bits away and bought this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DASUTN2?psc=1

Mike

 

[SteveF]

dedicated drawer for each size

That could be a lot of drawers :wink:

I have some of the bisley drawer cabinets
the one with drills has 30 drawers and i lined with edpm


Steve

 

[Lons]

dedicated drawer for each size

That could be a lot of drawers :wink:

I have some of the bisley drawer cabinets
the one with drills has 30 drawers and i lined with edpm


Steve

Great solution Steve =D>

 

[bourbon]

I inherited this type of tin from my dad, trouble is, I don't tend to put the bits away in the correct holes so they all end up in the bottom of it.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DORMER-DRILL- ... Sw-0xYZEsP