Sorting old drill bits

[Ed_Wischmeyer]

So there must be a special place in **** where your task is to size and place an assortment of old drill bits, putting them either into an old drill index or an old fractional drill container, measuring with two calipers that kind of agree, some of the time.

Fortunately, I have my "good" drill index and my "good" fractional drill container, and they're only missing one drill between them.

But I officially have 17 orphans, with multiples in sizes that don't show up in tables of drill sizes -- not fractionals, not index, not metric, not alphabetical.

I must have been bad in a previous life... flew excessively big traffic patterns, told everybody on unicom when I came to each taxiway intersection, blocked access to the runway with extended runups, something.

[Taltruda]

Haha I found the same problem the other day.. using a drill index, I found some that are tighter than others, and also some that the shank appears to be a different size ( smaller ) than the cutting flutes..

[wirejock]

Most are marked. I use a jeweler loop to read them then wrap a piece of blue tape with the label. If the label is gone, I measure the flute end with a caliper. Either way, I never use a bit unless I know exactly what size. Mystery bits are tossed.