On Wed, 17 Dec 2014 09:11:21 -0600, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:

Larry Jaques fired this volley in
:

I use them all freehand, not in a drill press. And it's all on loose
material, like mobile home siding/trim and wood. Half the time, it's
from setting the drill down and grabbing the screwdriver to put the
screw in, or from kicking it over. I need to build a safer storage
for them, too, because many are broken in my toolbox when they fall
out of the cheap plastic holder in which Snappy sold them.

Handymen are much harder on tools than machinists, in their nice clean
shops.

Sounds like you should be using stub-lenght drills for that sort of task,
or even a drill mandrel with only a tiny bit of (adjustable) stickout.
If you're using 1/16" bits, you aren't penetrating far.

Yeah, that might save most of the fall-over accidents. I'll keep an
eye out for some. But I drill pilot holes, too, and those need to go
deeper. I break a lot of 3/32" drills in window openings on metal
flanges when installing blinds. The setback they require usually
falls on the edge of a metal corner and they skid sideways and break
as often as they drill through. sigh

I stock up on Hertel, Triumph, and Precision when MSC has sales and
free shipping. 1/8" is one that I usually wear out rather than break,
so that's another size on my list. At a buck or so a pop, it isn't
too painful.

I typed "stub drill bit" and it gave me screw machine length, which
cost from $1.06 for Interstates up to $6.88 a pop for Guhring. Ouch!
In qty 12 plus s/h, usually.

--
The door of opportunity is marked "PUSH".
--anon