Help with table top holes for pins

[denis tuomey]

How do you accurately drill the holes in the edge of a table top for the pins? I thought I had it figured out,:confused: I made a jig to fasten to my drill guide out of 2" blocks, cross fastened it to fit the thickness of the 1" top, centered it on 1/2", marked all the holes at 1/2". It seemed to be square on the edge, after drilling and putting some 3/8" dowel pins in to check the fit, some of the edges where they met are high, some are low, few spots are dead on.:mad: The only way I can think of to correct this is to wobble out the holes and shim them, or plug em and re-drill. Any suggestions ?

[Bill Huber]

I know how I would do it and that is with my Jessem dowel jig, it would put them spot on. As long as you use the same reference side it makes on difference how thick the wood is.
What I think could be happening is the bit is walking a little, it does not look like you have any type of drill bushing on the jig.

[Mark Major]

Hi Denis...I've always just used my dowel jig to drill those holes. Is that banded melamine panel?... if it is I'd strip off the edge banding...plug the holes, level it and reband the edge.

Good luck, Mark.

oops...Bill posted before me. :)

[John TenEyck]

I had this exact problem on some table leaves I recently built. A further complication was that the leaves had to match the existing table pins/holes. I used dowel centers to transfer the locations of the existing pins/holes to the new leaves. Then I used my horizontal mortising machine to route (drill) new holes. If I had had a doweling jig I would have used that, as recommended above, but the mortiser did a great job. I did manage to goof one up, nevertheless, so I plugged the hole with a matching plug then remarked and redrilled. After staining/finishing no one but me knows of the mistake. In your case, as long as you reference everything from the same side and work carefully they should all line up. But as you've already found out even a few thousands error shows. So clamp your leaves together and draw the centerlines where you want them across all of them at once. Then use your dowel jig, or whatever, referencing from a common face. Good luck.

[Lee Schierer]

A couple of thoughts:

Are you using a brad point bit? Twist bits will tend to wander and follow the grain more than a brad point will.

How much play is there in your slide for the drill? Try rocking the drill back and forth while watching the tip of the drill.

Those blocks don't look very tall. Taller block would give you better alignment on the door. It also appears that the left one in the second picture is tapered. Get rid of the taper.

[denis tuomey]

I used a 3/8 brad point bit, the wood blocks I squared up on the joiner, the white that you see is a piece of paper folded over the edge to make up the slight difference in the thickness, the jig fit on the edge quite snugg with the paper in it, with no wobble. After marking all my lines with a pencil I used a center punch and by hand pushed a little dent in the cross hairs for the point of the bit to set in. All the holes lined up across the top, just that some are up n some are down. I've used this drill guide for years when putting dowels in, I would clamp some wide scrap on each side, level with the surface and just hold the drill guide base flat and stright n drill, and the holes would match up within sanding distance. Thought I would do this jig to ensure I get them perfect and WOW! Worst ever.

[denis tuomey]

I looked at the Jessem jig, it looks like it would do the trick without a problem, but pretty steep $, I doubt the LOML would go for that, I've already put quite abit into this table project.

[denis tuomey]

Hi Mark, its not melamine, the white that you see in the pic is a sheet of paper over the edge of 1" thick cherry to shim any difference in thickness of the top and the wood blocks n keep it tight and centered.

[glenn bradley]

I would plug the holes, go to the BORG and pick up a cheap doweling jig and re-drill. Well, actually I would use my Mortise Pal which will dowel as well as mortise. But, if I didn't have one and just had to get through the project, I would pick up an inexpensive 'centering' jig from wherever. General makes a couple of them for under $30. Harbor Freight has one for $13. Also, a $5 set of doweling centers might do the trick for even less ;-)