Thread: drilling

I always drill the blanks in my lathe (Woodfast midi). Drill halfway, move the tailstock, go again. I have never had a problem doing it this way.

I used to try to do it in a small, benchtop type drill press and it never ever worked.

You can buy purpose built vices such as this

Pen Making :: Pen Making Tools :: Pen Blank Drilling Center Vise - Pen Kits, Pen blanks, Clock Kits and wood turning accessories.

to drill the blanks. i have never used one, never even seen one but i would be interested to hear from any one that has.

If you are drilling your blanks in the lathe and there isn't enough travel in the quill, you should be able to drill as deep as the quill will go, and then release the tailstock, and push the whole thing forward by hand to finish off the hole. You don't have to push the drill through using the handwheel.

Originally Posted by thompy

Ive grabbed my years old benchtop chinese cheap drill press and bought a woodclamp, not enough travel in the quill/chuck to even go through a sierra sized blank. Using the lathe i have to unlock and move the tailstock forward to complete a drilling.

What quill/chuck travel do you use on your drillpresses? .

I had the situation where the drill quill had limited travel and would not completely drill through the blank, I overcame this problem by drilling as far as I could and then raise the platform that the vice was sitting on, raising the vise which pushed the blank up the drill bit until it was at the point where the drill had stopped drilling the hole. I then completed the drilling of the hole right through the blank. This method is only limited by the length of your drill bit and the vise can be raised in this way several times if need be to facilitate the drilling of the blank.

Of course you switch the drill off before you raise the platform with the vise on it and continue the drilling once it is locked into position so it wont move during the process.

DO NOT ATTEMPT to raise the blank or the vise while the drill is running. Switch off and then raise the vise.

Originally Posted by Treecycle

If you are drilling your blanks in the lathe and there isn't enough travel in the quill, you should be able to drill as deep as the quill will go, and then release the tailstock, and push the whole thing forward by hand to finish off the hole. You don't have to push the drill through using the handwheel.

I find that if I have the tailstock loose enough to slide, it is loose enough to vibrate - it just does not feel right to do it that way. I drill halfway, wind the quill back, move the tailstock forwards, lock it and wind the quill out again.

I don't know if the result is better , but it "feels" like the right way to do it.

Avery. I use one of those pens blank vice thingy's. Once you have it set up ( which I found to be a pain where the sun don't shine) and it is very accurate and easy to use. Every so often you have to vertually pull it to pieces to clean it, but well worth the effort.

I find that I get much better results drilling on the lathe. If my blanks are square I mark the center, lightly grip it in the 4 jaw chuck, bring the drill bit up to the blank and adjust it so the bit meets the center mark and then tighten up. If the blank is not square I turn it round between centers before drilling.
I have attached a picture of my setup.

Thanks for the replies fellas, one and all.

Seeing whalers setup i'm wondering if the pinjaws will help me, my chuck grips the blanks on only about 1/4 inch of the blank.

Avery i've seen those but i think i'll perservere with my wooden twin screw clamp, i can square it up on the drillpress base and should be all good for a fraction of the cost, while its not a lot, those centering clamps lift the blank off the surface of the press base and then if you mount that to a plyboard, higher again, with my drill length and quill travel it wont work for my lil press...i did consider one though. I think it'd be a great option for a full sized propper drillpress though.

The discussion has given me some ideas though like the centre marking and the turning between centres, i'll go back to the lathe(drawing board) and see what i can do, with a couple of new idea's.

Neal.

Merry Christmas Neal, and all the Pen Turning fraternity. Damn stinking hot up here in the tropics. I tried to turn a few pens out in the shed this morning, but only managed to complete one, before retreating to the air-con inside.
Don't know if my info will be of much help to you Neal. My drill press has a quill movement of around 150mm. I have it set on 80mm for almost all pen blank drilling I do. Most of the time that is too deep, I just feel & listen for the tip of the drill bit breaking through the bottom of the blank, then I really ease off of the downward applied pressure. I only drill about 12mm at a time, then lift up the drill out of the hole to clean out waste / shavings, before drilling out another 12mm. If you keep the hole clean, you reduce heat and pressure build-up, which can crack your blank + make your drill bit drift off course slightly. You might get a few ideas looking at the jig I have made for acurately centering the blank, and holding it in the perfect 90deg upright position. This set-up is deadly accurate, and super fast to drill out blanks perfectly every time. The blank holding drilling metal jig is from Timberbits. Anyway, you might get a couple of ideas from this mate. Cheers

I have the problem of not having the drill press travell down far enough through the blank so I have to put a timber base on the jig to raise it. Its easy to drill a hole in the base of the alloy jig so that if the press does travel too far the bit will just go through the hole into a timber base.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year everybody.

I drill my blanks on a drill press. The manual says the quill travel is 85mm but I measured it as 79mm.

I use a v block made from scrap pine and mdf that mounts in a cross slide to align the blanks. With this set up I can drill a blank up to 74mm without having to move the table down.
As Pariss said, you can only drill a small amount then you have to back out to clear the hole.

Thanks all again fella's, i think that my lathe bed is not quite right at the two positions i have to move the tailstock to and from to drill, and the headstock i can lock up but still has a tiny bit of movement, I've already expressed an interest in a dedicated woodfast yellow pen making device to the swmbo (not holding my breath). So i went back and re-looked at my drillpress.

I tried a few things like packing up my clamp from the stand baseplate, too much movement, too much packing. So i tried munrubens method on the swinging baseplate, however i'm using a packing plate slipped under the blank and clamp to raise it 20mm as opposed to repositioning the swing plate up (the post is in bad shape i need to get some silverslip). I am getting cleaner neater holes now than when on the lathe even though i'm having to drill, stop, pack up the blank and clamp, restart, finish.

It's a right pain (and yet the same process i was doing on the lathe anyways), though got a good result. Reading the faceplate on the press it states that it has 50mm i think this is a bit optimistic. And i cut my sierra's to 60mm.

Thanks all for the idea's an pics and advice, very much appreciated. I rekon i'll get a better one down the track (so jealous of pariss's JET she...er display room).

I got three pens done yesterday, so i'll get back into my good woodstock with a bit more confidence and keep my chuck for bigger things.

Neal.

Originally Posted by thompy;

I rekon i'll get a better one down the track (so jealous of pariss's JET she...er display room).
Neal.

Hey Neal, took me many years of hard work and saving to be able to afford all the machinery and tools + build the shed. Very expensive as every machine I bought, I had to bribe SWMBO with junk that she wanted.

hahaha mate dont i know it, i'm a few years behind you atm, i have the shed just not the tooling yet, i'm delaying the bribery for as long as i can, it'll be a losing battle though i think. Still it doesn't stop me admiring your workshop =)

Neal.

PS: stirring: you went for the kingchrome chair not the snap-on??wth.../giggle.

Originally Posted by thompy

hahaha mate dont i know it, i'm a few years behind you atm, i have the shed just not the tooling yet, i'm delaying the bribery for as long as i can, it'll be a losing battle though i think. Still it doesn't stop me admiring your workshop =)

Neal.

PS: stirring: you went for the kingchrome chair not the snap-on??wth.../giggle.

Ha ha, yeah, .... funny, no-one noticed my mini wheelie-bin. It's made by Queen cleaning products, I just thought "Pen Queen" may have noticed the additional signage applied to it, ha ha. Happy New year anyway.