Figuring out the drill press, and other tips

While I have been getting better at the entire process, my unfamiliarity with power tools (and tools in general) rears its ugly head sometimes. For the longest time, I could not figure out why the drill press seemed to drill straight holes (as advertised) that went diagonally through the pen blank instead of straight down the center (a feature not shown in any ads that *I* had ever seen). I even called the manufacturer of the drill press and spoke to their technical support. They had me make sure that the chuck (the part holding the drill bit) was on straight, and that it came down straight onto the table. I thought this would help, and it did help a bit, but I was still experiencing the frustration of not knowing when the holes would drill straight.

With large pen blanks (large in diameter), this is not as much of a problem, but if I ever wanted to do work with smaller blanks, I could drill through the side of the blank instead of out the bottom, and that would be bad.

I was pretty much at my wit's end, since I still did not have success after calling the drill press technical support line, so I went back to the gurus at Woodcraft and one of them said, in kind of an offhand manner, "I assume you have already squared the bit with the press table". I just looked at him, trying to figure out what he meant.

"You mean leveled the table against the chuck?", I said, figuring that had to be what he meant, since that is what the drill press tech said to do.

It turns out that the best way to drill holes straight down is to make sure that the drill bit is at a 90 degree angle to the drill press table. It sounded obvious as soon as he explained it, and I bought a small square to help me make sure of the right angle. Once I "squared up" the table and the bit...voila! Suddenly my holes were pretty straight. The bit will always follow the grain of the wood a bit, but the error was a lot smaller and could be dealt with.

Even with straighter holes, though, there was still an issue with not being able to get the pen tubes into the holes once they were drilled. One tip that seems to work most of the time (we'll see an exception later where it does not help as much, though it never hurts): After the hole is drilled, take the pen blank out of the vise and manually move it up and down the drill bit to clear out any bits that prevented the hole from being straight. It is a bit suggestive, but it works. :-)

Another tip which helped with the final product, that (again) I had not thought about, is the application of a second coat of finish. I had thought that one coat of finish was all that was needed, and indeed the pens came out okay, but a second coat of finish made a big difference!



This, I think, is my best work to date. It is the first pencil in the Classic American style that I put together, and all of the tips mentioned above were used. It is not the only good pen I have made, but it is (hopefully) the first of many great ones.