Silver and Deming Drill Index

Steve the Locksmith asked if I could take some pics of my home-made Silver and Deming (S&D) drill index. S&D used to mean drills made by Silver and Deming, but now it's come to mean any 1/2" shank twist drill bit. The 1/2" shank allowed use in a Blacksmith's post drill, now it allows the use in the ubiquitous 1/2" Jacobs chuck.
You can buy a Huot drill stand for S&D drill bits, but $40.00 is a lot to spend on organization and Steve is as cheap as I am.

My drill index. No, I don't have a complete set by 64ths of the S&D drills. I pick them up used and resharpen them. Sets can range from a cheap import set by 1/16ths to an insanely expensive US made set by 64ths.

The top surface is a sheet of self stick label paper. I printed up the layout for the holes with teh sizes beneath plus a number of unlabelled holes. I then used a sheet of laminating sheet over it.
I stacked all three pieces together and drilled the holes using the printed locations as a reference. I made the holes slightly over size. And yes, I really need to clean the grime off. It has stayed surprisingly readable over the years.

The panels are held apart by aluminum spacers I made on the lathe. 4 long flat head machine screws hold it all together. The panels are made out of scrap plastic, probably ABS, that I had laying around.

The countersunk flat head screw.

It's a good idea to keep the sides open so all the chips and such can fall out.