Need to drill a hole parallel in my daggerboard...

I am planing on routing off 1/8" from around the bottom 2/3rds of my daggerboard, fiberglassing it, and then drilling a couple large holes in it about half way and filling them with lead. How do I drill the holes? They have to be pretty darn perfect, so they don't come out the sides (front and back don't matter too much as there will be more than enough room to accomodate likely error, but they have to be parallel to the sides). All I have is a table top drill press, and it is way too small for that. (and the holes are way too big for my doweling jig.)

I suppose I could just find someone with a large drill press (though clamping it accurately will still be a problem), but is there any way to do it accuately with a hand drill? Making up a jig to hold the daggerboard and drill on a tabletop and sliding the drill across the tabletop into the daggerboard, or something like that? Thanks.

Reply to
Toller
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We're talking daggerboard like for a sailboat, and you're trying to add ballast, right? My first thought is that if you're racing the boat, check with your class association to make sure what you're planning on doing is legal for your class :-)

But, why do you have to drill the holes up from the bottom? If you're planning on glassing the whole board anyway, why not just drill some large diameter holes in from the sides with a hole saw and fill those with lead. Grind/sand/plane the surface of the lead inset flush with the rest of the board, then glass over the whole thing.

Reply to
Roy Smith

Ya know, that is an excellent idea! It will weaken the board more than the drilling the other way, but if I keep the holes low, there won't be very much torque on them; so it won't matter. Great idea.

Reply to
Toller

Why not just cut off the end of the daggerboard and make a new tip of lead. Then glass over it to hold it in place. A couple of screws through the lead might be in order if it's heavy enough. That will give you more of a righting moment for the weight than drilling holes further up the daggerboard.

Mike

Reply to
Michael Daly

Does epoxy stick well to lead? If not, I would be concerned about it just breaking if I ever have to use the dagger board to right the sailboat.

Reply to
Toller

With the proper prep, yes, epoxy does stick to lead. When I did my keel, the procedure I used was to rough up the surface with coarse sandpaper, then it got sprayed with some sort of commercially available acid wash, then it got an epoxy barrier coat (Interlux 2000, IIRC), then epoxy fairing compound (VC Watertite). That was 10 years ago, and nothing has come off since then, except for the time I hit a rock :-(

Reply to
Roy Smith

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