Last year I purchased a dowling jig. It is pretty good for 8mm and 9mm holes. But it has nothing to support small diameter drills.
I currently need to drill 3mm holes into a defined target. My attempts at dpoing so freehand have been unsuccessful.
What I need is a sleeve to fit inside either an 8 or 9mm drill guide tubes. I have tried plastic plugs (rawlplugs) and tried to find a suitable ballpoint pen case.
I need inspiration.
TIA,
Alan
Choose one from 4:
- get a local machine shop to make a bush
- Use a pillar drill (or hand drill with set squares and care) to drill a hole through a small block of something hard'ish and then use that as a drilling guide.
- buy one of these:
- search eBay for "drilling guide"
I have a pillar drill (drill stand with an old electric drill). I often use it with drill I need to use to drill through a block of wood of maybe 50mm depth. I then use this block of wood as the drill guide to keep a drill bit in a hand drill truly perpendicular.
If trying to centre the hole in a fairly narrow work piece modify your DIY jig to get...
A different DIY approach
In the past I've used panel pins rather than the dowels as shown in the video. To position the hole in the wood jig accurately temporally tap in a long thin nail/pin in the position you want to drill and then place the hole in the jig over the nail/pin.
Like this, perhaps?
eBay item number:285074697456
Fit 8mm drill bit to bench drill, align your 8mm jig bush with it and clamp down. Now put 8mm rod in jig and 3 mm bit in drill. Sorted. Or do you lack a bench drill? Smooth the surface to be drilled, centre punch it, start off with a centre drill, these are short and stiff so don't wander like a regular twist drill bit.
Try gwr-fasteners.co.uk.
Yes, they definitely could have solved it and at a reasonable price.
Thank you.
I carried on searching and to my surprise found a vendor who had the last 3mm bush that fitted my dowel jig. I won't get it until Jan 27 but I have other stuff to get on with. It was the last one they had, this side of China!
Alan
This is for the middle of a long board so a nench drill was out of the question. Anyway, I have tried spotting the holes twice and had to bore out the result and full with a 9mm dowel before starting again.
Thanks anyway.
Alan
Yes, I would have gone for one of those but found a 3mm dowelling drill sleeve.
Thank you.
The bench drill was for making an accurate 3 mm bushing for your jig, not for drilling the hole.
Oh!
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