The Shoebox Hack That'll Make Using A Power Drill Much Safer On Your Eyes

As cool as it is to pierce the proverbial heavens with a power drill, it's no secret that those drill bits create quite a bit of waste. When drilling into a surface either on a wall or in your ceiling, a lot of dust gets created, and thanks to the centrifugal force from the drill, often blown all over the place. That dust can get right into your face if you're standing nearby (which you are, since you're holding the drill), which can be extremely hazardous for your eyes, among other things.

It's for this reason that safety goggles are an absolute must while working with power drills, but while safety goggles can definitely help keep dust out of your eyes, they won't stop it from getting all over the rest of your face, not to mention your room. What we need here is a D.I.Y. solution to keep all that loose dust in one place, safely away from your delicate face bits and carpet. What we need is the gold standard of grade school diorama projects: a shoebox.

The tricky thing about power drill dust is that you can't really stop it from spitting out without preventing the drill from doing its job. You need a way to catch all the dust and keep it in one place without hindering the drill's ability to drill into things. Enter, the classic shoebox. With a few quick adjustments, a humble shoebox can be transformed into a drill-mounted dust catcher, catching the waste without hindering operations.

All you need to do is use your power drill, equipped with the drill bit you plan on using, and drill a hole into the underside of the shoebox. The drill bit will pierce right through, creating a perfectly sized hole. From there, keep the shoebox in place over the drill bit and drill into whatever you want, knowing that the dust will be a controllable mess. If you need to drill deeper, and your shoebox is the kind with a removable lid, you can do the same thing with just the lid, which has a shallower depth and won't prevent deeper penetration.

With your newly modified shoebox-power drill hybrid ready for action, it's time to put it to work. Just for the sake of precaution, you should still be wearing safety goggles while doing this, though with any luck, it'll only be a precaution rather than a necessity.

Place the drill against the surface you want to drill into, holding firmly onto the shoebox with your free hand so it doesn't spin or shake. As you activate the drill and dust starts spurting out, the shoebox will catch all of it as it falls. Once you're finished drilling or the shoebox is full, remove it from the wall while holding it upright. Bring it over to a trashcan and dump the dust out, then you can continue using it.

As long as the shoebox is intact, you can continue using it in this manner, reattaching the drill bit as necessary and storing it alongside your other tools. If you're using distinctly larger or smaller drill bits, you may need to modify another shoebox to accommodate the change in size, just so the dust doesn't leak out through a differently-sized hole in the bottom. Otherwise, a strip of duct tape will do a great job sealing the hole so you can drill a new one elsewhere.