Hobbyist and DYI makers very often extend usage of elements and components beyond its usual assignments. I would like to share with you one such a case.
Whenever you drill through the wooden or plastic sheet you has to be really careful not to drill through. The common well know method to prevent that is to use tape or scotch wrapped around the drill bit. Once I was out of tape and had to look for substitution. Piece of heat shrink tube came in handy. It fitted drill bit exactly, I just needed to cut proper length of it. That was very lucky finding. I entirely stopped using tape for this task and switched to heat shrink or straw tubing. Especially convenient it becomes for projects which needed drilling with the same drill size but with different depth. Switching between tubes can be done in a second.
The best result is achieved when tube sits tight on the drill bit. In case you does not have exact heat shrink size, you may cut tube, which is too narrow, alone. It will still work. But you need to be more careful to stop drilling right at the moment when tube touches the surface. Otherwise it may be torn away by drill rotation.
Heat shrink actually suited for various tasks. I even published blog, picturing some of them : http://www.instructables.com/id/Not-for-Insulation-Only/, Here is list from that blog in a short:
- Controlling depth of drilling (that idea you actually see here).
- Using heat shrink while hanging picture on sheet rock wall
- Protecting awl tip
- Keeping tweezers tips together.
- Making paper clip to work better.
That topic got some attention and was even featured by one of the site editor. Author Phil B told me about one more usage of heat shrink: fixing claps on kindle reader case. I am sure there are many more cases which extends usage of heat shrink tubes.
Author Left-filed Designs published this blog https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Self-Locking-Nut/ . Very good. Will use myself for sure.
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