I am putting up 20 foot high white pine columns in my great room. A column cap will be installed on top to hold the ridge beam. The white pine columns are 10″ X 10″. We will be able to install the column caps on the 20′ columns before they are installed upright.
The question is this…..how do we use a hand drill to drill the 5/8″ hole through the beam so that it will come precisely out the hole on the other side of the column cap.
We had thought about using a drill press and making a platform that would hold the 20′ beam level and square to the drill bit…..
There is also a jig that can be clamped onto the hand drill to hold it square to the beam but no rental place has one around here….
Our cordless has a built in level but that will only assist in making sure that one angle is level….the other must still be squared…..
Any suggestions?
Replies
I see 2 option. One is a "portable" drill press. These have a base and posts that a carriage tht carries the chuck slide on. That might be want you where wanting to rent, but they are only about $10-30.
You can use the level on the drill for one plane. Then clamp a square on the beam near the where you want the hole and use it as a site to keep it aligned in the other plane.
Or an extention of that idea. Take 2 scarps of ply and attach then at 90 degrees. Then using some more scraps attach the ply to the beam so that the corner where the 2 pieces attach are right over where you want the hole and each one of the pieces are at 90 to the face of the beam. Then just run the drill bit down the intersection. If need you can short the plywood a time or two as you drill deeper.
Line up the post, cap & beam in the desired position, then draw reference lines from the cap to the beam. Take down the post, & use the reference lines to place the cap on the beam in the desired position & drill it in place with 2 flat head temporary screws lateral to the desired hole. Use a doweling jig ($20) to align the holes & drill away.
What's a "column cap"? One of those things back-to-back U's made of steel that connects the two pieces of wood? If so, why do you have to make the hole only 5/8"? Make it bigger, because the steel will cover a larger hole. Also, drill from both sides. That is, drill halfway through the beam from one side, and then drill from the other side. This halves the error from drill misalignment.
Edited 5/20/2003 2:11:22 PM ET by JAMIE_BUXTON