Use your drill press in reverse to make perfectly centered holes

Craft & Design
Use your drill press in reverse to make perfectly centered holes
drill_a centered_hole.jpg

Vik Olliver put up a great tutorial about how you can successfully drill down the middle of a shaft using a standard drill press and cheap vise. To do this, you drill the part backwards, by putting the drill bit in the vise and the part in the drill press chuck. The trick is that you can line up the vise precisely by placing the drill bit into the chuck upside down, lowering the tool, then using it to align and clamp down the vise. Once the vise is secured, you release the drill bit from the chuck (but not the vise), and put the part in the chuck. Of course, a lathe might be preferable, but sometimes you have to work with the tools you have! [via Hack a Day]

12 thoughts on “Use your drill press in reverse to make perfectly centered holes

    1. Matt Mets says:

      Ah, thanks for the correction! As for all Makers being virtuous people, well, maybe that is true as well!

  1. mateotravieso says:

    Excellent tip. Thanks.

  2. volkemon says:

    (Am I the king of input errors?!? Now when it welcomes me by name, and I leave a comment, it says “registration is required’ and suddenly forgets who I am…back to the ‘copy then send’ SOP )

    Neat trick, and helps to stop the distortion of the drilled piece by having more contact patches than the (2) on the vise.

    Link to a good book from the Hack-a-day comment list-

    http://www.archive.org/details/textbookofadvanc00smituoft

    Gonna load that PDF in the laptop for bedtime reading.

    1. Gareth Branwyn says:

      What system/browser are on you, Volkemon?

      I know our IT folks are diagnosing a problem now with IE on PC and cookie caching.

      1. volkemon says:

        Hm… I will email you on this so my compooter ignorance isnt displayed for all to be amused by ;)

        IE on a PC is a good description, however.

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