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Drilling the center of a round shaft

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Daniel H.
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Drilling the center of a round shaft

Postby Daniel H. » Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:20 am

How is the best way to be sure you are drilling in the center a piece of round stock? I need to make a new shaft for a side dresser. It is 3/4" cold rolled steel with a series of 1/4" and 3/16" holes drilled in it. I have a drill press. I found vee-block that might work to center it. How do you make sure all the holes are in line with each other; in other words, keep it from turning when you slide it to the next hole?
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Rubee
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Postby Rubee » Thu Feb 09, 2006 11:32 am

Daniel, very hard to do w/o a cross slide vise or a mill. Think about clamping the round stock securely in the v- block. Mount a straight edge against the v-block and parrallel with the "v". after aligning and drilling the first hole, slide the v- block set up along the straight edge keeping it tight to the straight edge. Hard to explain but it might work. Good luck_Al

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Postby Dave (69 lo-boy) » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:30 pm

If you can make a v block out of wood you can drill the first hole through the stock into the v block and insert a pin to keep the stock from rolling in the block, use a fence and slide the v block along the fence to the next holes.
Hope this helps.

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Centering

Postby allenlook » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:53 pm

Daniel,

I used the V-block and pin trick until I got my sliding vise, but I would add that you want to center the V-block below the quill first. When drilling small stuff I used to mount a 45% router bit in my drill press first and press it down on the V-block to make sure it was centered below the quill of the press, and clamp it down good. That made sure I started my holes in the center of the rod.
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Postby Ron L » Thu Feb 09, 2006 6:17 pm

Dan. Another thing to think about would be .... after everything is line up ready to drill, start the hole with a center-drill so it won't walk off center.....
Ron

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Postby allenlook » Thu Feb 09, 2006 6:21 pm

Oh, good point. When I drill hard materials, I make a drill guide...

Take a block of wood and drill a hole right through it, the size of the holes you want to drill in the rod.

Then, turn that block on its side and drill a big hole through it with a forstner bit that is the size of the rod itself.

Cut that block in half with your bandsaw or table saw and clamp it over the top of the rod, so the rod still slides under it without moving it or messing it up. Center it when you clamp it by lowering the drill bit into it. It's temporary, but it works great for keeping your drill bit on center.
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Postby Ron L » Thu Feb 09, 2006 6:33 pm

Allen. If you had a set of drill bushings, that would be a perfect "drill jig" to have for a particular dia rod (if made out of steel) .......... :lol:
Ron

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Stuff

Postby allenlook » Thu Feb 09, 2006 6:41 pm

You're right. One time I cheated and put one of my countersink bushings in the top of the block, but I never really drilled round stock enough to spring for a set of bushings like that :D

Some people call it Yankee Ingenuity, but I'm humble enough to say I'm just plain cheap :)
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Postby Daniel H. » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:23 pm

Ok, I've thought about it some more. Could I use a piece of angle aluminum to scribe a straight line down the length of the shaft? This wuld give me a reference line. Then center the "vee" block on the drill press and drill the first hole on the line. The line would give me a reference for the other holes. Any thoughts?


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Rotation

Postby allenlook » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:42 pm

So long as you don't rotate the pipe as you slide it down to make the next hole (assuming you need to drill more than one hole.)

Your accuracy will be as good as your ability to align the bit to the line you have scribed, and scribing the line will put you well ahead of someone who has NOT scribed a line :)
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Postby Dave (69 lo-boy) » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:51 pm

Daniel H. wrote:Ok, I've thought about it some more. Could I use a piece of angle aluminum to scribe a straight line down the length of the shaft? This wuld give me a reference line. Then center the "vee" block on the drill press and drill the first hole on the line. The line would give me a reference for the other holes. Any thoughts?


You can draw a good reference line the way you described, the question is can you eyeball the bit exactly on the line everytime?
If all of the holes need to be perpindicular then you should use some type of jig to hold the same register every time, on a small diameter shaft even a few thousands rotation will be noticable.

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Postby George Willer » Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:12 pm

In a drawer next to my most used drill press is a temporary device I made over 30 years ago. It worked so well for me, although not as accurate as possible, that I'm still using it.

It's a plate with holes to bolt it to the drill press table. Welded to that plate are two pieces of 1" angle on their back to make an improvised V block. In use it's bolted to the table and the table adjusted so the drill meets the joint between the angles. (A center finder improves accuracy a lot) Any rod that's laid in the jig is, for all practical purposes, drilled through the center. Accuracy is improved by starting with a center drill. For this operation it's best not to be timid, but bash the drill down firmly. This doesn't give the drill time to wander.

We have more accurate ways to do the job, but for most things it works fine.
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