Drilling
Tall Without The Wobble...
Saturday, August 01st 2009
I recently made
a Split Turned Vase on the lathe and it required a
precisely drilled hole in the top of it. Because the
vase is hollow I had to use a Forstner bit to
eliminate splintering when drilling. This meant the
tall vase (Figure 1) had to remain rock solid steady
and secure when drilling. Time for another
jig...

Figure
1
Figure 2
Figure 3
In any drilling
operation it is best to have the support closest to
the region being drilled. Given that, I decided the
easiest way to accomplish this would be to drill a
hole in a wide piece of scrap wood in which the
diameter is slightly larger then the outside
diameter of the top of the vase. This is
accomplished using a circle cutter (a.k.a. knuckle
buster for obvious reasons) at a very slow speed
(Figure 2). Once the hole was drilled I chamfered
the edges (Figure 3) for a more secure fit on top of
the vase.

Figure
4
Figure 5
The jig was placed
over the top of the vase and held securely
to the drill press table with 2 Bessey bar
clamps (Figure 4). Now comes the easy part;
drilling the hole safely and without any
wobble (Figure 5). All-in-all, about
45-60 minutes to setup and prepare to drill
a hole and about 30 seconds to actually
drill it, but that's the way it goes when
you strive for perfection...
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If you have any
questions or comments about this blog entry please
do not hesitate to
send me an e-mail. Thanks and be
safe when working with tools!!!
Burgie
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Robert Burgoyne, also known as "Burgie",
has been doing woodworking for nearly 30
years. He started learning at an early
age in his grandfather's garage and
continued while working with his father
in construction. The hobby has now
become a business with Creative
Landscape Accents. Burgie builds
high quality woodworking projects for
the outdoors and also enjoys making
decorative accent pieces for inside the
house. While not working in his shop
doing woodworking Burgie enjoys
computers, restoring his old
1964
Chevy C60 2-ton dump truck and
riding his Harley-Davidson Road King
throughout beautiful Colorado.
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