Mill bits! I got lots of mill bits!

[BTL-A4]

I got a box of over 150 new and used mill bits of various sizes and types for free. I'm pretty sure this is a lifetime supply for me. Now I have to go thru them all and find a place to store them in an organized manner. Most of them came in plastic tubes with labels. So far the labels are correct. I have about 50 more that need plastic tubes. I stored some taps this way and made labels and taped them to the tubes.


The other option is to sell some of them. Might be more trouble than it's worth, though, since the shipping would be too much. I might put an assortment in a box and sell that.

I'd be curious to hear what you all think about storing them or selling them.

 

[txvwnut]

I’ll be the first to say it, you ****. Most of the endmill holders I’ve had have been made of wood. You could get a 2x4 or a 4x4 and drill some holes in it and set the endmills in it to build a set then keep some of the extras in the packaging they came in.

 

[LXCam]

You definitely ****!

Congrats on that score.

 

[Jswain]

Most of them look worthless, send them to me and I will recycle properly.

Jk, you ****!

 

[LopezBart]

I’ll be the first to say it, you ****. Most of the endmill holders I’ve had have been made of wood. You could get a 2x4 or a 4x4 and drill some holes in it and set the endmills in it to build a set then keep some of the extras in the packaging they came in.

Reaching over end mills sticking up is how I find out how thin my skin has gotten on the back of my hand... a single row, spaced far enough apart works, esp. for ones about the same length.

 

[Dave455]

First off - if you can use them, keep them.

If you sell them individually the shipping pretty much negates the savings to the purchaser.

If you sell them as one lot you will only get “cents on the dollar”, even if they are decent, as nobody will really know that.

As for storage, I’d leave the ones with tubes in the tubes. The only thing I might do is add my own labels, as manufacturers have a habit of printing the size as small as they can!

For the loose ones I’d probably find a couple of shallow plastic boxes, but protect each cutter in a small bag. Some individual plastic tubes would be better if you could source some.

 

[isr2kba]

I get my end mills at auction and usually in numbers that take me a while to go through. The ones I end up keeping get stored in HF rollaways. I buy those medical tubes off Amazon in a few sizes and store them that way because the writing on the containers they come in is too small or damaged to read.

 

[Steve_P]

McMaster sells all sorts of storage tubes for tooling like end mills and drill bits.

 

[Sumboodie]

I sort mine in a pile. No fancy pipes, tubes or other balonie.

 

[Sweetcorn]

Huot end mill indexes are great for storage.
Congrats on the lucky find!

 

[PCustoms]

I sort mine in a pile. No fancy pipes, tubes or other balonie.

Is this a brag?

Excellent way to ruin anything with a cutting edge.

 

[Sumboodie]

Is this a brag?

Excellent way to ruin anything with a cutting edge.

No, just facts. Not ruining anything. It's tool steel.

 

[BTL-A4]

McMaster sells all sorts of storage tubes for tooling like end mills and drill bits.

I've got an order from McMaster in my cart for about $50 worth of tubes to place all the loose ones in. I thought I might be able to find them elsewhere, but M-C seems to be the best source.

I might do as @txvwnut suggests and drill some holes in wood and store them upright in a deep drawer or on a shelf. I'd like to be able to see them so I can find what I need when I need it.

I also have a new parts organizer that I've been looking to use with enough drawers to store most of these. I just need to organize everything.

 

[2oolhound]

You ****!

I scored these in 2016 for around $30. I had torn the innards out of some shipping cases and kept the foam so I reused it here. The bottom row has round tubular holes bored into the thicker foam using a piece of tubing sharpened on the edge opening and inserted in a drill. The other rows were just cut with a box cutter.

 

[WhataTool]

Sure they look like a lifetime supply, but I bet on your next project you need something thats perfectly the size you don't have as this is the 1st law in tooling.

 

[Jswain]

Sure they look like a lifetime supply, but I bet on your next project you need something thats perfectly the size you don't have as this is the 1st law in tooling.

You're not wrong lol

 

[WhataTool]

You're not wrong lol

Open up the mcmaster-carr book of shame yet again!

 

[LeeG]

I dip all mine in green dip seal. I‘ve been using my 5lb sample pack for about 15 years.

Lee