Metal Ball Jar Lid Drill Press Holder for Sterile Culture Technique

thingiverse

This is a drill press table cover I redesigned with slots for a lid holding mechanism. It fits snugly on top of a Ryobi drill press, but can be easily modified to fit any sized drill press table. Its purpose is to aid in the drilling of injection ports and air filter holes into standard metal Ball Jar lids. To prevent twisting under pressure from the drill bit, I included a full circle ring holder for thin metal lids. You can now repeat drill hole locations in your lids without needing clamps, measurement blocks, or laser sights. Based on Paul Stamets' work in "Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms", this design enables sterile culture in a semi-sterile environment with self-healing inoculation ports and gas exchange filter discs. This means regular people can grow culinary mushrooms at home, and students can practice biology labs in an educational setting. The cover accommodates both regular mouth and wide mouth metal lids. I plan to create a plastic lid drilling version soon, but this one is designed for drilling the metal lids that come with new Ball jars. Equipment purchased from shroomsupply.com includes 29 mm Air Filter Discs (https://www.shroomsupply.com/air-filtration/synthetic-filter-disc-29-mm?cPath=42_44&zenid=e0k5bbus20kbolvh8qcc9psu75), Super Heavy Duty Self Healing Injection Ports (https://www.shroomsupply.com/lab-supplies/super-heavy-duty-injection-ports?cPath=42_44&zenid=e0k5bbus20kbolvh8qcc9psu75), and Red High-Temp RTV Silicone (https://www.shroomsupply.com/lab-supplies/red-hi-temp-rtv-silicone?cPath=42_44&)