new drill bits

I am now the proud owner of ten (10) brand new #41 cobalt-tipped drill bits. I can tell they're aircraft quality because each and every one is individually wrapped.

When you're doing the law school thing, you take your excitement where you can get it.

Actually, there is a difference between normal hardware store drill bits and the ones used in aircraft work. The manufacturer grinds the tip at a different angle to improve the bit's accuracy. Or at least that's what they tell us so we'll pay a dollar a bit, and once we've paid a dollar a bit we're strongly predisposed to believe anything that justifies the price.

In any case, I bought these bits for drilling out rivets. When you put in the smaller rivets, you drill the hole using a #40 bit. A #41 bit is slightly smaller--for whatever reason, higher numbers mean smaller bits--so it reduces the chance of enlarging the hole when removing a rivet. I pretty much wore out my old #41 bit pulling the skin off the rudder. This new set should last quite a while.