Do you have a hot glue gun? I think I read somewhere that someone used it, (the heat) to make easy holes... I think it would be ok if you used cardboard, however I am a newbie too, so lets see what anyone else has to say...

I think your plan will work just fine, at least for a while. Perhaps you could cover the bin with a towel, which would also allow for ventilation.
Meanwhile, even if you couldn't find worms on freecycle, perhaps you could find a drill!
mbetts

Do you have a hot glue gun? I think I read somewhere that someone used it, (the heat) to make easy holes... I think it would be ok if you used cardboard, however I am a newbie too, so lets see what anyone else has to say...

Use a knife. Stick the point in, turn and twist it. It will carve out a hole without much work. You only need a few for the leachate.

I will suggest raising the bedding off of the bottom of the bin a little bit, and then angling the bin to have the leachate come out of the holes. If you don't, the holes will just fill up with compost, and then they won't drain at all.

Good point. If I tilt the bin slightly, I can just put holes along the low end, and maybe melt them in - I found a metal skewer I can heat on a stove flame.

I didn't think about compost clogging the holes. Maybe I can find a piece of something to screen the holes.

mbetts - good idea! I will look for a drill on freecycle and craigslist. I'm not a contractor, so an ordinary household drill will be fine.

Nails, screws anything to help you puncture the bottom, and even the sides. If your bin is set up and runs good, you shouldn't really have too much leachate. Leachate is really just extra water that is allowed to escape. It is nutrient rich, but as long as you aren't adding a bunch of water, and have enough absorbent bedding, you shouldn't need too deal with it. The holes are mainly to allow air into the bin so the worms can have plenty of air to breath.

What I used to do a lot to drill holes in plastic before I got my own power drill was to get a pair of pliers (vice grips are best) a nail, and fire. Gas stoves are perfect. I also highly recommend leather or similarly rugged work gloves.

Heat the nail with the fire then poke it through the plastic. You get a nice, neat hole with a little melty dollop of plastic that will pop off once it cools (it'll stick like glue and burn you pretty badly before it's cool so keep your bare fingers, skin, and clothes away till then).

I also recommend having a bowl or coffee cup of water handy to dunk the nail to cool it between holes. The water container should not be glass (since metal breaks glass if you get singed and drop something in surprise) and shouldn't be plastic since you're working with tools to melt plastic.

Dunk the nail, scrape off as much plastic as you can (so you don't catch it on fire re-heating the nail) and repeat as necessary.

Use good ventilation, melting/burning plastic stinks and probably isn't good for you to breathe in much.

Also, don't try using a cigarette lighter to do this. I have, it doesn't work. For one thing it's not really enough fire. For another, you'll burn yourself guaranteed. Even with the gloves it'll get too hot. If not for your hands, it'll get too hot for the lighter and you'll melt the top off. Been there, done that, found myself holding an impromptu DIY rocket motor as the valve failed open and the entire contents of the lighter ignited in a few seconds.

I got lucky, as it could've exploded.

Oh, and the microwave doesn't work either. I didn't do that one, but I know someone who did. I'm embarrassed to call him a friend.

Soldering pencil with small tip works very well!

That's true too, but if you're wanting to use it for regular soldering work later you might prefer to avoid that. Molten plastic can be tough to properly clean off a soldering tip, and will invariably wreck the integrity of any solder joints you attempt until it is.

It'll cut plastic like, unsurprisingly, a hot knife, but you might want to stick with used tips that aren't any good for anything else. At least if you're like me and are likely to need a good tip later to poke through your wife's mp3 player to make it work again.

I have no problem cleaning the plastic from the tip. A wet scrubing pad the green ones works and the sponge on the other side wipes solder off as well. Just keep tip tined and you'll have no problems.

I hadn't considered that - you're absolutely right.

The first time I tried it I didn't have the tip properly tined and it never got completely clean after that. After that I just always used old tips that weren't good for fine work anymore, so there wasn't any point in keeping them tined.

Still, I'd advise just using old tips, it's no-risk that way.

Update: I did use a metal skewer and the pointy end of another tool, heated up in a gas stove flame. Made lots of nice holes in the bin. The worm farming is underway! Kinda anti-climatic. I can't tell yet how much they eat, or if I need more worms. But I finally got the project together, and the worms are OUT of the fridge.

Thanks, everyone, for your ideas. I have included a link to my blog post with pix about the worm bins.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blog post about the worm farm