I delivered my headboard job yesterday morning and I begin my entertainment center job for the next customer. It is made up of 4 more of my front and back face frame style cabinets. IIRC this will make 33 cabinets built this way in the last 32 months. As we all know cabinets typically have lots and lots of shelves and that many times over for the shelf pin holes. One job alone had in excess of 650 shelf pin holes. So I am sick and tired of the monotony of drilling those damn holes.
Many years ago I bought a jig for drilling these holes long before Rockler called itself Rockler,,,,, from Rockler. This jig was a clear plastic plate with spaced indexing holes for a Vix style drill bit. This thing worked great for many many years. With age the plastic began to crack and I was fearful that it would disintegrate in the middle of a job. Additionally with it's spring loaded bit each plunge to drill a hole required a bit more effort than simply drilling the hole. I wanted to go to a jig that simply used a standard non spring loaded bit.
My next jig was the Kreg shelf pin hole jig. I have drilled countless holes with this tool too but it really is not built for production. The jig allows you to drill about 6 holes and then you have re-index and drill 5 more, repeat, repeat, repeat..... I spent as much time repositioning the jig as drilling the holes. I did however like the standard non spring loaded drill bit. FWIW you can gang the Kreg jigs together for a longer run of holes however that arrangement is not ready for prime time. The attachment pieces that join the jigs cause the jigs to not sit flat on the panel so you absolutely have to clamp the jig flat to the surface for proper spacing perpendicular to the surface, adding more time.
A couple of days ago I contacted Precision Casewerk to get some particulars on their True Position Drill Guide. I might add here that the line boring feature for the shelf pins was not why I was looking at this jig. With cabinets come a ton of drawers and doors. I let my customer pick their pulls and these things come in a wide variety of sizes. There are simple jigs for drilling these attachment holes but again I am tired of making them and making them work. My last kitchen cabinet job with, customer supplied, pulls almost turned into a disaster. I quickly measured the pulls as 4" and they were actually 96mm. I used the 4" holes on my cheapo jig and the holes were wrong....;~) Fortunately the handles had large enough bases to allow me to enlarge the holes enough to work. I decided at that moment I was going to get a better jig.
The True Position Drill guide is pretty much infinitely adjustable for most any sized two screw pull. The jig allows you to repeatedly index these holes with great accuracy. You can actually attach the pulls to the jig and then lock the drill guides to the location you want, remove the pull and begin drilling. Any way this jig uses standard 5mm drill bits. And yes the shelf pin holes will be the increasingly common 5mm variety too. Talking directly with the manufacturer I was assured 5mm shelf pins would be plenty strong unless you were to set an anvil on the pin. They are basically 3/64" smaller than 1/4". The bonus feature to the jig is that you can attach two line boring plates and drill 24 holes
32mm apart with out having to move the jig, that is about 30".Any way in true Leon fashion the jig is priced similar to Festool. The main jig generally sells for $169 and up. Adding the line boring plates normally adds about $110 to that figure so I was looking at $270 plus shipping. A big chunk of change, but hopefully it will be worth it's cost in time savings and certainly in lowering the frustration level.
Fortunately I thought to check my local cabinet hardware store, Cornerstone Hardware in Houston. Their price for the above mentioned jig and add on line boring plates was $239. I ended up with the TP-1935 kit.
I'll post a review as I proceed with this job.