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After a few projects if you hadn't bought a set of drill bits (which comes with its own box) you end up with a bunch of loose drill bits that could get lost. I can't seem to find drill bit index locally (they are always sold with a set of drill bits) so has anyone tried storing them in wooden blocks? I heard that the moisture tends to migrate to the bit and rusts it...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

If you keep your shop at 45% humidity or so, you won't have much trouble with rust. I keep my brad points in a wooden block, and I have not noticed any rust.

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Waddy

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Easiest drill block to make is take a thick piece of wood (any wood will do really, even doubled up plywood glued together) and put each drill bit in the chuck and drill a hole about 1/3 the length of the drill bit into the wood. Space them out so that there is about 3/8-1/2" between them. Next take a strip of masking tape and run it along the hole, but don't cover them up. Now write on the tape the size of the drill bit and store the drill bit in the wood next to your drill press or what have you.

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About the humidity thing, I run an air conditioner in my "shop" (really my room) which does help keep the humidity down. The humidity in Taiwan averages around 80% and up, not sure what 45% humidity is but I only run the aircon when I am around otherwise electricity bill will go through the roof (it already has due to rising energy costs) but winter is more of a problem because I can't run the A/C due to the fact that it's already cold... and I don't have space for a dehumidifier. I am guessing there are ways to measure humidity?

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

You measure humidity with a hygrometer .... but it needs to be calibrated to be somehwat accurate - they are only ever good to within a couple percent, but thats close enough.

As for using an air conditioner to drop humidity, yes it will do that, but more often than not, not enough - because it shuts down when the target temperature is reached, and doesnt care what the humidity is. Inthe summer months in my shop, with air only on I can get to about 55 percent or so, unless you plan to work with a parka on - you need to further dehumidify to get lower humidity.

with humidity that high year round .. you really need to build as airtight a room as you can, and dehumidify that to a suitable level - some say 45-50, I only brace at 40-42.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

So is having a desert humidity critical when working guitars or just make sure the wood is properly acclimated to the environment you work in? I ask this because I notice a lot of guitars from "inlaidartist" cracks and stuff and I hazard a guess that perhaps he buys green wood and probably air-dries them in the wrong environment. I notice that they sell a humidifier to increase the humidity inside an acoustic guitar case since it seems that too low of a humidity will do more damage to a guitar than too much.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

To answer this you first have to answer how low and will the guitar be moving from environment to environment.

If you are building for your self and not shipping the guitars then wood acclimated to 70 f at 30% RH will not cause any issue in70f at 30-40% RH. Now things change a lot in desert, from day light to dark and change rapidly. I know I live in a high desert, 2300’ ABSL. Our average outside RH is 30-35% day time and 20-30% at night. Then comes winter! In the winter we have lows as low as 5% at 20f when the wind blows and temps drop, Then in the spring when the rains come (if they come) it can change from 35% to 90% in a matter of an hour and do that a couple times during one 24 hour period. During early to mid spring it is hard to even guess what is going to happen with in a single day.

I have to add humidity more than I need to remove it. But spring time I never know which way it will go. In the winter I always have to add humidity.

In the desert the worst case for wood and glued up parts is dropping the RH rapidly by 10-20%. Parts shrink and glue joints are stressed and the glue looses its elasticity.

So I'd imagine that a lot of guitar manufacturers have problems with guitars cracking and stuff from being too dry right? I think even the taylor videos says not to get a guitar too dry, that's why they make case humidifiers. I have seen shrunken fretboards in Taiwan (you would think with Taiwan's humidity it wouldn't happen) and with acoustic instruments humidity control is important even for end users...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

You could try scrap plastic instead.

I'd like to see how others - at least the organized ones store their bits. We keep adding to our collection with no end in sight.

Thanks for the advise... if I can find scrap plastic thicker than 2mm that is... Not sure where to get acrylics but I know they use it a LOT in Taiwan. I also got a few router bits that would benefit from this kind of storage.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com