Itsy bitsy, teenie weenie...

[TrainNut]

Nooooo, not a yellow polka dot bikini.... drill bits. I just cracked open the box for an HOn3 boxcar and the instructions are calling for #'s 51, 65, 77, 78, 79 and 80. Any advice on where I can go to finding them? Jewelry store? Rock shop? Arts and crafts store? I got the big "I dunno" shrug from the three tool stores I went to today.

[Steamtrains]

How many of yous' knew the end to that ditty..??? Kinda dates us....
MicroMark offers micro-bits...Whatever you do...don't buy the stuff on eBay.....Don't ask me how I found this out...

[Squidbait]

Any advice on where I can go to finding them? Jewelry store? Rock shop? Arts and crafts store? I got the big "I dunno" shrug from the three tool stores I went to today.

Your local hobby shop, maybe? Any well-stocked LHS should have them. You'll also want a pin-vise to hold them. Hobbytown should carry an assortment of bits, bit sets and drills/vises.

Not that it helps you much, but I just got a set of bits from #61 - #80 for $3 at Princess Auto, a Canadian tool and surplus chain. Actually it looks exactly like this one... hmmm.

Did you try Harbor Freight? They've got a grab pack of mini bits that may have all the sized you need.

[TrainNut]

Your local hobby shop, maybe? Any well-stocked LHS should have them. You'll also want a pin-vise to hold them.

Not that it helps you much, but I just got a set of bits from #61 - #80 for $3 at Princess Auto, a Canadian tool and surplus chain.

Did you try Harbor Freight?

I called one Hobby shop and they promptly put me on the ordering list for a quoted price of $32. They do have the pin-vise in stock though.
$3? That's what I'm talkin about.
Harbor Freight.... that's a good idea. For some reason I dismissed them right off the bat as thinking they would not have anything that small. Thanks.

[FiatFan]

A good source for small drill bits is your local machine and supply store. Last time I bought them I think they were around a buck apiece.

Tom

[tomustang]

Walthers does have the mini drill set for what you need, other than them you can pick up a MSC catalog and run wild for ANY bit size you need.

At Harbor Freight you can buy the 115 pc bit set (red rectangular box) for $20-30, it has the # set from 1 to 60.

61 to 80 would be out of reach though

[Squidbait]

Check out your Hobbytown. You should be able to get the Squadron drill set for about $15, or the Mascot 12-bit set (#50 - #80) for about $11.

[Russ Bellinis]

Check out Mocro-Mark http://[/url]http://www.micromark.com[url] You can get the set from #61-#80. I lists for about $30.00 or a little bit more. For your build I don't think I would order one of those sets though. As you go through the menu, they list drill bits, rather than drill sets. On that page you can order individual sizes and get them in packages of 6. If you haven't used those small drills yet, or even if you have a lot of experience with them, you probably will not get your box car done without breaking a few bits. If you spend $30+ for that set and the first hole you try to drill you break a bit, you will be in deep do do. You need 6 packages of 6 each of those drill bits the sizes 60 to 74 will run $7.15 per package and the sizes 75-80 will cost $8.20. The other alternative is to go to a pharmacy and buy a hypodermic syringe. You should take the box car kit in with you to show the pharmacist what you want to do with the syringe. It is considered "drug paraphernalia", so you need to show him that you are buying it for a purpose other than shooting up drugs. The advantage of the syringe is that it is cheaper and stronger than all of those tiny drill bits. You should also get a "sharps Box." used syringes are considered medical waste and can't be just thrown away like a broken hack saw blade. In one of the clinics at the NMRA show put on by a mmr, she mentioned that when she first went into the drug store to buy her first syringe, she took a kit in and offered to pay for the syringe and show the pharmacist what she wanted to do with it with the proviso that he could dispose of the syringe after she used it if, and keep the money if he wasn't comfortable selling it to her. When he saw what she did with it, he became a "friend for life." She didn't know before she went in that he was a model ship builder and was looking for something to make small holes in ships hulls to mount the rigging to! She pointed out that if you "recycle" the various parts of the syringe inot other scratch building and kit bashing modeling projects, the only thing that will go into the sharps box will be the very tip of the needle. She uses the needle except for the tip in the bottom of tree trunks to mount the trees on her layout. The various other bits and pieces of the syringe are used for vents, pipes, culverts, and whatever else she thinks of that the pieces can be made to look like. The barrel of the syringe works as a natural pin vice as well. You hold the outer barrel with the handle at the joint where your thumb and fore finger attach to your hand, then swivel the inner barrel between the thumb and forefinger to drill.

I don't know why it doesn't parse the url.

[Squidbait]

Russ, you have to put the URL inside the first brackets :[url=http://yaddayadda]your text here[/u rl]

And for that matter, any LHS worth its' salt should have the individual bits too....

[e-paw]

Yea,, Micromark is probably your best bet.

[Russ Bellinis]

Russ, you have to put the URL inside the first brackets :[url=http://yaddayadda]your text here[/u rl]

And for that matter, any LHS worth its' salt should have the individual bits too....

Is there a way to get the site to automatically parse urls?

[Charlie B]

Here is a nifty index listed on amazon, and the price is cheap enough to get 3 or 4 sets. I was looking at these the other night. I do need to get another pin vise or two, that way you can have several bits chucked at once. I always drill the holes in the kits a little oversize to install the plastic details. I was using metal details for a while, but some of the plastic castings, although more fragile, have a better appearance. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/20pc-MICRO-DRILL-INDEX-61-80-Plastic/dp/B000SJ5V3E">http://www.amazon.com/20pc-MICRO-DRILL- ... B000SJ5V3E</a><!-- m -->
Charlie

[Squidbait]

Russ, you have to put the URL inside the first brackets :[url=http://yaddayadda]your text here[/u rl]

And for that matter, any LHS worth its' salt should have the individual bits too....

Is there a way to get the site to automatically parse urls?

Not that I'm aware of.... it probably takes some fancy coding, and isn't a priority (yet)

[TrainNut]

Wow, lotsa good information there. I like the hypodermic needle idea... keep that as a backup plan. Since the family had to run out to Sonic for dessert, we stopped by Harbor Freight to see what they had. I found a little pin-vice that had 6 bits in the handle (most of which are the ones I need). I did see the big package of 30 that went up as high as a #60 but I also found a smaller package of 30 assorted bits. Trouble is, the smaller package is labeled in mm's. How do the two labeling systems interact? #'s to mm's? For instance, how do I tell what # bit a .8mm is?

[shaygetz]

Sears carries a good set, so does Hobby Lobby if you have one of those. Both places sell theirs with a pin vise for about $9. Sears also sells a separate pin vise with a ball head for about $9.