Using a drill with fine-precision screwdrivers

I find myself needing to screw or unscrew many small screws quite frequently. Most of the time it’s screw terminals or some other small electrical device, but this also applies to things like eyeglasses or repairing things with small assemblies.

If the thing-to-be-unscrewed is extremely tight, it can be brutal to get enough torque on smaller screwdrivers while maintaining enough downward pressure on the screw to avoid slipping. A drill would be my natural solution, but a lot of times these screws are in hard-to-access mounts or locations. Than means that even if you have a drill bit fine enough to fit in the screw head, you often can’t get the drill into the proper position due to the drill chuck or body.

A solution that I discovered completely by accident is that the common “precision” screwdrivers that are sold everywhere from hardware stores to grocery stores can fit perfectly into a standard drill chuck. If the chuck is opened all the way, the round end of the screwdriver will fit down into the back section, and then the internal teeth of the chuck will close around the knurled surface of the screwdriver body for a very strong grip.

I’ve found this to be a lifesaver for tightly stuck tiny screws or when screwing/unscrewing a large amount of small screws that would take a long time by hand.