While working on my current project, a couple of very irritating mysteries cropped up in the workshop. Luckily for my sanity I eventually found the answers, but I wonder if anyone here can work out what the hell was going on?

First there was the case of the blunting drill bits. I came into the workshop one morning with the intention of drilling two holes in a block of mild steel, as a follow on from some drilling I had done the day before. I selected the appropriate drill bit from my favourite set and using my trusty old Myford lathe I set about drilling the hole. To my surprise the drill made hardly any impression on the steel. I wondered if I had picked up a piece of hardened tool steel by mistake, so tried again with a scrap of definitely mild steel, only to find the same problem. I presumed then that it must be the drill bit that was the problem and I must have seriously blunted it the day before. So I then took a drill bit of the same same size from a new pack and this also refused to drill. Something seemed to have taken the edge off all my drill bits overnight. I tried few other drill bits and none were any good. Any thoughts?


The second mystery was the case of the kamikaze bluebottles. During one of the recent hot spells every 10 minutes or so a bluebottle would fly into the workshop and drive me nuts with its incessant buzzing and crashing into the lathe and the windows. It go so annoying that I had to keep a can of fly spray at hand and waste a lot of valuable time chasing the beggars around. I couldn't understand why they would come into a sterile workshop, having to fly through a narrow gap in the outer garage door, cross a large floor space and find a narrow gap through the workshop door. I suppose I could have completely closed the two doors but it was too hot to do this for very long. It took me a while to figure the problem out and get it sorted. Any suggestions?