How to avoid dust when drilling in the ceiling

When you have drilled holes in the ceiling before, you know how your floor looks like when you've finished drilling - not to mention your hair.

In commerce you can find several dust collecting tools, ranging from plastic bubbles all the way up to tiny drill dust collecting vacuum cleaners. But let's keep it simple and cheap. Take a piece of paper, scissors and some Scotch tape and make one yourself in less than a minute.

Step 1

Start with the ingredients:
- a piece of paper
- scissors
- scotch tape

Comments

[1hotpilot]

This is OK for occasional use by a homeowner but be cautious. It will wear your drill out much faster than normal if you use the technique while you make a living. Each hole you drill will embed some of the sheetrock dust in the drill's front bearing (& the chuck). This turns the grease into a grinding compound, which wears out the bearing.
I utilize an empty yogurt cup or other small plastic dairy cup that I first drill a hole in the bottom center with the bit I am using. An empty soda bottle bottom trimmed to size also works well with even larger hole saws up to 4" in diameter.

[Marble of Doom]

Hey, clever!

[mightysinetheta]

Depending on the size of the hole being drilled, a dab of toothpaste or shaving cream can catch the particles too.