Drilling holes for net pots, the correct way

[GpsFrontier]

Hello Davephan

I do it a little simpler. Like you, I found it hard to find the right size hole saw sizes, and never seemed to have the size I needed. So I bought a rotary tool for $12 at the swap meet (I attaches pictures of it). So now I just make a template out of cardboard or something like a plastic butter container lid. Then I just draw a circle where I need it, and just fallow along the line with the rotary tool. No trying to find the right hole saw size, or trial and error to figure out what size works the best.

To center the circle where I want it, I make a dot where I want it to go, and make a hole in the center of the template so I can see my dot through the template. That makes it easy to center the template. To find the center of the template, I just use a ruler to draw two straight lines crisscross top to bottom, and side to side, where they cross is the center.

For softer materials like Styrofoam, I use a cheap handheld soldering iron to cut out the circles (or any shape I need). I also use the soldering iron to make holes in baskets instead of drilling them. It's much faster, easier, and wont crack the plastic if you press to hard with the drill. Just do it outside or in the garage so the smoke wont smell up the house. Also when you burn the Styrofoam instead of cutting it you don't get all those annoying little Styrofoam balls flying around all over.