I am building book shelves that will be adjustable. This will give me an opportunity to use my drill press. I am a novice but have been willed tools from my father in law. My question is: Do I need a template to drill the holes or is there an easier way?
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I have a masonite template that I use on rare occasion I make holed adj shelves. I clamp and drill with a cordless.
If I was doing a number of sides, I'd take them over to bubba's commercial casework shop and run it through his hole machine. Drills a whole lot of holes at one time.
Drill press would work if you could rig up a movable stop that would register to the previous hole.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
Go over to Knots and ask.
You'll have 2 dozen answers in 5 minutes.
Joe H
Thanks, but what is knots?
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/
Fine Wood Working's equivalent to Breaktime
Look close to the top of the screen, should see , knots, breaktime, cooks talk, etc.
Knots is the woodworker equivalent of Breaktime. To put it crudely - here we build houses, there they build furniture. The mag that sponsors Breaktime is Fine Homebuilding. The one behind Knots is "Fine Woodworking."
The next question is, "Where is Knots?" If you look at the top of your screen, there is a box with the Taunton Press logo and ad in it. At the bottom is a list from "Taunton Home"... going over to "Customer Service". Immediately under that box are the titles for the six different forums - Knots, Breaktime, Cooks Talk, etc. Right now, Breaktime should be highlighted, cause that's where you are. Click the mouse on "KNOTS" and away you go...
Good luck.
Don K.
I know, and employ, a finish carpenter who does all the line-drilling for each job, by site-making a template from a strip of scrap plywood, and doing the holes with a corded drill.
Seems inefficient, in that he just throws the template on the scrap pile at the end of each job, rather than taking it with him.
But the bottom line is that he makes the template in only a few minutes, setting his sawblade of the tablesaw to cut a 1/8 deep slot for a guide, then marking and drilling through the piece, with the kerf as an alignment aid.
His shelf units have about 4 holes in the vicinity of each shelf, rather than a top-to-bottom row of continuous holes. Theory is, you want to be able to tweak things a little, but not that much.
and Stinger
http://tinyurl.com/b2rqs
Cheap Version
http://tinyurl.com/8yhu6
Expensive Version
What everybody else says.
Or if you dont need the Euro system with the 32(or 35, I forget) MM system you could use a piece of peg board. Ive done it a few times when I started out, works fine.
Doug
I usually use a piece of pegboard and my cordless drill...however, it appears you want to "practice" with your drill press...so here's a simple way to drill consistently spaced holes using the drill press.
First. lay out the position of the first 2 holes in line that you wish to drill into your work piece.
Clamp a piece of plywood to your drill press table to act as an oversized table that can support your work piece . Then, screw or clamp a 1x or a ripping of plywood to act as the tables' fence.
The fence should be positioned so that when the work piece butts up against the fence, the marked lay out holes will be in proper alignment with the drill bit of the drill press.
Now hold the work piece tight against the fence ( or use a clamp) and drill that first "marked" hole. Set your depth guide on the machine so you don't accidently drill clear through your work piece. After drilling this hole, remove the workpiece and drill another hole through a piece of scrap wood...this time drilling all the way through. Cut off a piece of wooden dowel rod that matches the diameter of your drilled holes ( 1/4 inch dia drilled holes...use 1/4 inch dia dowel...)
Return your original work piece to the drill press and position the press to drill the second "marked" hole. Bring the bit down to confirm you are lined up but don't actually drill the 2nd hole yet.
With work piece properly lined up, Place the dowel rod into the first hole you had drilled. Now place the drilled scrap piece overtop the drill press's fence and slip it down over the dowel rod. when you are satisfied that the scrap hole is lined up properly with the dowel rod and the work piece, affix the scrap to the fence with a couple of drywall screws to hold in place.
With dowel rod inserted through scrap wood into the first drilled hole of your work piece, you can now drill your 2nd hole into the work piece. After drilling said 2nd hole into work piece, simply remove dowel rod, move work piece down so that newly drilled hole will align with the dowel rod, insert dowel rod, and then drill your next hole...etc. etc. The dowel rod controls the spacing intervals of your hole locations.
I hope my instructions are not too confusing.
Good luck.
Davo
Have you thought about using metal shelf standards instead of line boring the cabinet sides? I'll dado the sides, assemble and install the cabinet. Then you install the standards in the grooves. This makes for very level shelves that don't wobble. The standards should sit a little proud of the sides. They're available in brass, nickel and probably other finishes. I think they look a lot classier then a bunch of holes.