Craig Day
04-08-2022, 3:18 PM
Greetings all…
I am wondering what sort of accuracy everyone with a dowelmax is getting out if their alignment. I’ve had my dowelmax for a number of years now and accuracy has generally been decent, but my expectation is that the alignment is far better than what I’ve been getting. I have been very careful at edge alignment and using consistent clamping pressure but I am still sometimes what seems like almost 1/32” off in alignment.
I took the dowelmax to my mill with the DRO and my haimer 3D probe to measure the individual drill guide diameters, offsets from the edges/sides of the aluminum block they are installed in, and spacing between guides… I cannot fault the dowelmax nor the drill guides… it was surprisingly accurate and consistent between guides and from end-to-end/side-to-side… I’m not sure I seen a measurement more than a few tenths (.0001”) off.
So this leaves me to point to my drill bit itself and how tightly it fits in the drill guide. I am seeing a difference of about 0.008” between my drill bit and the drill guide. Even without taking a measurement there is noticeable slop. I am using a brad point bit so I get clean cuts going in… but I honestly don’t recall if this is the bit the dowelmax came with or not. The next thing I’d like to try is another drill bit that has a much tighter fit to the drill guides, but I feel like I’ll be rolling the dice here and just testing a bunch of bits that vary slightly around 0.375”.
So what sort of accuracy is everyone getting with their dowelmax? What sort of drill bits are you using and what sort of clearance do you have between the drill guide diameter and the drill bit diameter?
Is there something else I’m missing here with getting more accurate alignment?
cheers,
Craig
I am wondering what sort of accuracy everyone with a dowelmax is getting out if their alignment. I’ve had my dowelmax for a number of years now and accuracy has generally been decent, but my expectation is that the alignment is far better than what I’ve been getting. I have been very careful at edge alignment and using consistent clamping pressure but I am still sometimes what seems like almost 1/32” off in alignment.
I took the dowelmax to my mill with the DRO and my haimer 3D probe to measure the individual drill guide diameters, offsets from the edges/sides of the aluminum block they are installed in, and spacing between guides… I cannot fault the dowelmax nor the drill guides… it was surprisingly accurate and consistent between guides and from end-to-end/side-to-side… I’m not sure I seen a measurement more than a few tenths (.0001”) off.
So this leaves me to point to my drill bit itself and how tightly it fits in the drill guide. I am seeing a difference of about 0.008” between my drill bit and the drill guide. Even without taking a measurement there is noticeable slop. I am using a brad point bit so I get clean cuts going in… but I honestly don’t recall if this is the bit the dowelmax came with or not. The next thing I’d like to try is another drill bit that has a much tighter fit to the drill guides, but I feel like I’ll be rolling the dice here and just testing a bunch of bits that vary slightly around 0.375”.
So what sort of accuracy is everyone getting with their dowelmax? What sort of drill bits are you using and what sort of clearance do you have between the drill guide diameter and the drill bit diameter?
Is there something else I’m missing here with getting more accurate alignment?
cheers,
Craig