CW responds:
Not really. You CAN drill a perpendicular hole with nothing but a try square standing next to it. You MAY then use that drilled hole as a block to make sure a series of holes are perpendicular, and do that job faster. But why that's BS, I can't figure.
Charlie Self "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." Plato
The chicken - God wouldn't ;ay an egg. ;-)
Glen
Great ASCII art! Or just a typo?
Wolfgang
Yep, that's exactly the way I do it when I need a "perfect" hole. It might take you a couple of tries to get a hole that's perfectly perpendicular, but once you get one you are satisfied with, use it as your guide.
I tend to do my drilling with braces or an eggbeater hand-drill, and I've found that it's easier to track them for verticality than an electric drill.
Also, if you have to do a long (deep) hole and keep it perpendicular/vertical, it helps to mark the vertical on your piece and use that to help you eyeball it. I tend to tilt a drill/brace/whatever slightly past vertical away from me, so I make sure to get the bit started vertically from the front and then I move around the piece to check from another angle before going any further.
I was able to drill a 15" deep hole for a lamp and come out about
1/8" off perfect (front-to-back; side-to-side was as close to perfect as the eye could see). The trick was I marked the verticals on all four sides, I used a brace and a ship's auger (once you start one of these straight, the lead-screw tends to pull it straight), I clamped the piece to the floor with a handscrew and stood over it to drill, and I stopped and checked from various angles frequently. (This was a big slab of mesquite, and I was not about to screw it up.)Chuck Vance
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