How to make a universal handle

Breakage of a tool is an extremely annoying and unpleasant incident, especially if it breaks during work. However, this is not a reason to immediately throw it in the trash. It never hurts to try to repair it first. In this case we will talk about a thin, double-sided screwdriver. Surely many have encountered such a problem as the breakdown of a hexagonal plastic holder. As soon as you pressed harder on the screwdriver, this very holder, in which the metal pin of the screwdriver itself was mounted, shattered into rags!

Well, let's try to give this broken instrument a second life. Namely, we will make a universal handle into which you can install not only various types of screwdrivers, but also, for example, an awl, a hook for hemming shoes, and even thin needle files.

Will need

Thick marker (for body).
A chuck for an engraver or a machine bur (jaw or collet).
Two short bolts for the side clamps of the cartridge in the body.
Drill, 3mm drill bit, and small cutting disc.
Medical or technical alcohol (can be a solvent).
Thin marker for marking.
Pliers.
Technical scalpel (or a stationery knife with a thin sharp tip).
Screwdriver for selected bolts.

Making a universal handle

The chuck for making the handle can be a cam or collet chuck.

Personally, I prefer the jaw chuck; There's less fuss with it. The good thing about a jaw chuck is that you don’t have to change collets every time to clamp tools of different diameters; one of the downsides is; it is slightly larger than a collet chuck. Although, if you have all the tools of the same diameter, then you can use a collet chuck with one clamp. And it doesn’t take long to swap heads from different cartridges - their bases have the same threads. This will be seen in the video below. You can order such cartridges on AliExpress, Joom, and other similar online stores. So, first, let's look at the marker. Remove the cap and back cover, shake out the impregnation, and remove the pen with pliers.

What remained was the bare body. More precisely, a tube with a narrowing at one end. Now you need to saw off the tip at the narrowing point where it will most accurately fit the selected cartridge.

If the outlet turns out to be slightly wider than the base of the cartridge, as in my case, you will have to select some kind of bushing for it. Aluminum, iron, or plastic - it doesn’t matter, the main thing is to eliminate the gap.

Now we mark with a thin marker or pencil the points where we need to drill holes for the fixing bolts, and drill holes there equal to the diameter of the bolts.

Insert the cartridge into the bushing. It should look like this:

Next, we insert the sleeve into the marker body, and use a technical scalpel to cut holes in the body opposite the holes in the sleeve.

We unscrew its “original” clamps from the cartridge - they are without caps, so we don’t need them.

We insert the cartridge into the body with the bushing installed, and screw in the fixing bolts.

Now let's take care of the broken screwdriver. We free it from the remnants and debris of the old holder, and saw it in half.

It turned out two bits - cross and flat:

To them I also added an awl, which I carved from a pin from a disk drive - the steel of these pins is very strong, just right for an awl.

We check the resulting product; insert the bit into the chuck and tighten it.

You can try it on something. If everything is fine, take out the bit and, together with the other bits, put them into the marker body, on the back side.

It turned out to be a kind of pencil case for bits, inside the handle. And there's even a cap! Now you can remove the manufacturer's markings from the body of the former marker if they are in the way. It can be easily removed with a cotton swab moistened with alcohol.

Well, if, for some reason, someone wants to change the jaw chuck to a collet chuck, I have already described how to do this above; you just need to change the clamping heads of the cartridges. It's half a minute!