Post-it Note to Keep Drilling Clean

Use a Post-it Note to Catch Drilling Debris

Recently an older tip from Lifehacker has been making the rounds again and I thought I might as well bring it up here. Our resident Master Carpenter Lee Madden showed me a similar trick when he was installing the biggest dry erase board I have ever seen. He used a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 paper and a strip of blue masking tape to do the same thing on a larger scale. While Lee's patent pending (not really) creation works great when you have to drill large holes - it's a lot of excess if you are just drilling a hole to hang a picture frame.

Single Pad of Canary Yellow Post-it Notes

This is where the Post-it note comes in. Post-it notes are of course available just about everywhere, and you probably have some unused ones sitting in every desk around your house. If you are going to use these regularly, you might want to upgrade to the Heavy Duty Post-it (they call them Super Sticky). If you opt to go for a more generic pack of adhesive notes instead of the name brand, you can get more for your money.

Improved Post-it Based Drill Debris Catcher

Of course, when I see an opportunity to improve on an existing idea, I'm going to jump on it. The original holder is great, but if your Post-it fills up enough, or isn't perfectly level the dust and plaster chunks are going to spill out and you would have wasted your time. By simply modifying the original design and folding little corners into the bottom of your Post-it, you'll save yourself any additional hassle from over-flow and the vacuuming that comes along with it. I took a photo of my modified drill debris catcher, then made a quick sketch of it in Inkscape because cell phone photos in darkened offices still aren't great.