I’d love to get other people’s opinions regarding drill press fence solutions. Currently, I’m not entirely thrilled with my fence setup. And I’m curious whether it’s a me problem or if there actually is a better solution. I currently have a Nova Voyager DVR with the stock table and fence. I do not have any prior experience with aftermarket tabletops like the Woodpeckers DP-Pro, but I'm starting to look in that direction. A part of me is wondering if I even know what exactly I'm seeking- hopefully that's relatable, lol- but anyways, would love other people's thoughts.
I graduated college last May and spent a sizable chunk of my time there in the university's machine shops. I learned to absolutely LOVE working on knee mills and bed mills. Also enjoy working on metal lathes and proper CNC Vertical Machining Centers too, but something about the blend of user feedback with levels of precision impossible to obtain by hand, along with the use of the cartesian XYZ coordinates in relation to the work, just tickles my brain, I find it so satisfying. Now that I've graduated, I don't have access to that level of machinery. While I'm aware that those levels of precision are both unrealistic to expect of typical woodworking tools AND totally unnecessary for most woodworking projects, where possible, I'd like to mimic some of the functionality of those machines.
Back to my drill press- I dislike how much of a pain it can be to set the fence to just the right position to achieve a certain distance between holes and the board's edge. While I know it does not matter much in this particular application, I'd find it easier for the fence to move along one line, as opposed to how trying to walk it into place always results in weird diagonals. While I do not have one, I look at the fence adjustments built into nice mortising machines, how it always stays perpendicular to the work surface as opposed to going diagonal under typical adjustment, and it just seems simpler, if that makes sense? Plus, most of those fences lend themselves to microadjustability, whereas a fence that freely moves along two supports without staying in parallel, such as the existing one, is sort of a hope and a prayer to get to exactly right.
It also makes me think of how in general, a lot of the higher end router table fence solutions find a way of remaining on one plane as opposed to going diagonal. Like how the Jessem, Incra, Infinity, Harvey, etc. all keep the fence parallel throughout the adjustment, compared to something that provides horizontal movement in the screws relative to the base of the fence itself, thus allowing the fence to go diagonal. All the systems where the fence stays parallel throughout its range of adjustment offer microadjustability too.
So I guess I'm wondering, is there any solution you guys have stumbled across for drill press fences that limits the degrees of freedom within its adjustments, such that its adjustments are more possible to precisely control? Something more like what can be found on high end mortisers, router fences, and milling machine tables?
I built a table for my 17" Jet. It had a round table, I built a rectangle the same width as the round table.
The crank handle to raise is just as accessible as it was before, I've seen many DP tables that require an an adapter or relocate to use the crank. You have push button, so it's not a thing with you.
14" x 24" and I've never needed it to be bigger.
Hey, you don't know me, but you don't like me ... Buck Owens
I haven't built a "proper" table for my DP, but I do have one of those XY tables for small mills installed. Very handy for positioning and with the "T" slots, I can have a fence mounted on the back edge. I'll use the front/back position adjustment for the table to position the bit the needed distance in and just slide the work piece left/right as needed for drilling. The typical range of movement for these small tables is somewhat limited.
While I like most others have a shop-built DP table and fence that works extremely well for all my needs. Reading your post the precision you seem to require would make me suggest the solution "SplinterGroup" refers to. These X/Y tables were quite popular on drill presses back in the late 70's - early 80's. I have one stored away that I haven't put eyes on in almost 30 years. Looking at a 2 HP jet table saw the other day I tripped over one in tall grass just outside the owners shed. My point is that these are not so rare a commodity that you should be able to acquire one both easily and affordably. Good luck.
I've got 2 of them, but they also both play well with my 2 bandsaws. I have a Kreg fence on my 14" saw, and have never really been wild about it so I looked around. I ended up buying the Carter Mag fence which I dearly love. Super simple, set and lock down the magnets, and it is THERE not going anywhere. at the time I thought of it just as a bandsaw fence.
For years my drill press was a radial DP made by Shop Fox. On it I had made a HUGE table, with all sorts of T Track, and other BS, and all I ever used was a fence, to stop stuff from going forward, that was it for me, just a fence. I sold that one, and bougth a 14" table top DP, and told myself all I was looking for was a fence, and BAM, just like that Mag Switch came out with 2 new fences, and BAM again, I got a call from an old friend who sells a lot of tools, asking me if I wanted one to review, yeah sure, send it on. I reviewed it, and really like it, but I kept thinking dood you already own this fence.
I didn't actually, but the Carter mag fence was so similar and I dearly loved it on my bandsaw, but DOH, never gave a thought to it on my DP. Why, I haven't a clue. I absolutely am in love with mag technology. I also love that wedge lock, or square end on the Mag Switch fence. I also love the ability on the Carter to use the grooved fence to house all kinds of T nuts, and stuff attached via them. Tell the truth I couldn't pick a winner, love em both. Love em on, or off a drill press, or a bandsaw. Either way they rock.
Just throwing them out there because a lot of folks overlook them. If you want a lot of do dads, nope, but if you just want something to cram something against, they rock, so easy to set. Have the ability to angle in a second, cause all stuff isn't square, and a fence in T Track is supposed to angle, but they don't do it well
Yeah I was already aware of the XY table options that exist. On an unrelated note- I’ve actually been considering building what would basically be a version of an XY table for precise horizontal boring on a standard wood lathe. But that’s a different rabbit hole, haha.
Im considering an XY table but both don’t think that would be an end all be all, also don’t know how well it would work on a nova voyager. If you accidentally bump the table walking past, it shifts from the center hole being directly under the drill bit, if that makes any sense? So I would be concerned the shear weight of an xy table plus my workpiece would actually lend itself to being LESS accurate. Moreover, it wouldn’t lend itself to bigger workpieces.
I’m realizing that especially since there’s no miter slot in my drill press table, it really just isn’t a big deal for the table to shift diagonally. With that said, it would still be awfully nice if the table could just be more micro adjustable.
I guess what I’d love would be a fence that borrows the micro adjustments from router fences, just for a drill press?
Similar to SJ's suggestion, I have a milling table setup for my lathe which can be mounted on my DP tabletop. This is MK.2... I haven't posted MK.1 here (yet), however, I made it out of a cheap "two way cross slide vice", which I posted here at LJ(you need to scroll down).
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
@LittleBlackDuck Very cool project! Not entirely sure how practical that would be for the type of woodworking I typically do or what use case I could find for it, but regardless that’s super up-my-alley and I like the detail and precision you put into it.
I was going to avoid raising this as it’s a digression from the drill press fences themselves, but oh well, you got me going back down the rabbit hole:
As I mentioned my own previously considered project of developing something like that for the lathe: For the speargun project I’ve been planning and have mentioned on here in the past, I will need to drill some large diameter (⅞”-1.25”) holes fairly deep (6-10”) in the end surface of my teak blanks, which will measure somewhere around 3” by 2.5” in cross section. Those holes will need to be perfectly parallel to the orientation of the laminated piece they are drilled into. Basically this: With the internal hole being perfectly parallel to the length of the overall part, which would vary speargun to speargun (different lengths of overall speargun) but would be in the general range of 20” to 40”.
Having given it a lot of thought, I decided this would be an absolute NIGHTMARE to attempt on my Nova Voyager Drill Press. Turning the table EXACTLY 90 degrees, clamping this part to it PERFECTLY straight, lining up the fence… this would wind up being impossible. So I sat with the idea of “well then, how the heck am I going to drill such a hole?” Until I stumbled upon this article: https://www.woodsmith.com/article/horizontal-drilling-on-the-lathe/ This clever jig relies on the spindle being calibrated to the lathe- which I’ve already done- and just seems like a considerably more capable way of accomplishing the task. With that said, I did notice one outstanding issue. Per the diagram I drew, the values for dimensions A and B need to be precise- ideally within 3 thousandths of an inch of intended, more or less? While this drill jig seems great, it doesn’t offer micro adjustability in either axis it controls- height or fence. If I need to adjust it, I will be reliant on not overdoing adjustments once the locking knobs are loose- all of which would likely lead to drastic swings back and forth trying to fine tune a dimension. So I figured “what if I designed my own version of this jig that relied on lead screw movements the way an XY table does? That could lend itself to achieving the precision of an XY table”.
The issue is, it would need to fit my existing lathe, and would also need to have adjustability in a Z height axis. So unlike in your project, just slapping an existing XY table onto the bed of my lathe wouldn’t be accomplishing what I am seeking. I wound up painstakingly brainstorming my way through a “XZ” table. Here’s a few of my rough sketches to give an idea of what I mean:
The lead screw would run straight down the runner in the bed gap, the 4 support rods running on linear bearings would be on the outside of the lathe bed. The fence would work similarly on a lead screw, with its components recessed within a phenolic top so as to reduce the minimum height the top would sit off the lathe bed at its furthest position.
While this project is definitely possible, the further I got into planning it, the more I realized that it was a LOT. Just putting parts into my cart on McMaster-Carr.com - it would likely run me over $1000 for all the parts that would go into the positioning mechanisms for both axises. And that’s not accounting for the cost of the wood parts, the phenolic top, machining the phenolic top, etc.
So I wound up coming up with a potential alternative solution. I’ll build the jig as shown in the article, but use a lathe bed extension and make the jig small enough that the tailstock can fit on the bed behind it. Then, I’ll use precise equipment like a height gauge or calipers to accurately mark the A and B positioning for the center of the hole, on a secondary piece of wood. I’ll put live centers in both the headstock and tailstock, and position this wood locator between the live centers in accordance with my markings. Ill then raise the table and move the fence against the wood, which should be held in the correct position by the headstock tailstock combo. Then I can remove the helper piece, remove the tailstock, and drill the actual teak part with the fence and height having been set by the chucked positions. Worst case, this doesn’t work, and I end up needing to build the crazy lead screw version I planned out. Otherwise, it’ll be a clever workaround that saved me like $1500+ in building an excessive jig.
Back to the drill press problem- yes, I would love an XY table for my drill press for the occasional really precise need. But in general, I’d just love it if the drill press fence would lend itself to adjustments in a bit less of a haphazard manner than my existing one does. I can’t fully explain it, but I just get the feeling that if this fence offered fixed holes instead of solely the long slots, it would make it more useful for various uses. One such case would be if you ever choose to run a drill press with a mortising attachment. By adjusting the fence, ESPECIALLY if you had a mortise that was wider than your hollow mortising chisel, you’d need to re-square the chisel against the fence every single time. To me, that seems like it would end up being a total headache. If a fence adjusts along a fixed axis/plane, I just get the sense it would make a lot of fidgety aligning moments simpler?
While I had initially been looking mostly at just getting one of the woodpeckers drill press tables, now I’m considering building my own.
For the lathe, could you mark the centers if each end of your wood blank precisely? If so, place each mark on a center in the lathe head and tailstock. Turn on end down to a diameter of a headstock collet. Then place the rounded section in the collet and drill with a bit in the tailstock.
@splintergroup What you’re suggesting, if I understand it correctly, is fairly similar to what my “well, heres a method that makes the initial jig a viable alternative” solution.
Your proposed method, if I’m not mistaken would be similar, but I’d be mounting the piece between a live cetner and a spur center, actually turning an inch or so, then chucking up that inch. Then, the drill would be in the tailstock, not the headstock, right?
It’s definitely a clever approach too, but slightly less ideal for my application. The hole will not be centered relative to the cross section of this board, which means it will be turned while out of balance, which is sketchy. Additionally, that would then require me to chop off an inch or so of the material I needed just to fit in the collet. I think this method might be a bit simpler as a result, but still, I like your idea too!
As for my idea, does it make sense? Do you think it would be viable?
It’s worth noting- I bought this lathe in the buildup for this very project. At one point in the shopping process, I had narrowed it down to the Rockler 12-24 and the Rikon 70-1420VSR. The Rockler cost about $400 or more less than the Rikon. But the Rockler had a minimum speed of 300 RPM, the Rikon had a minimum speed of 150 RPM, and a quick google search led me to the following webpage https://kmtools.com/products/forstner-bit-rpm-chart?srsltid=AfmBOooOMnodTQVGVb4FBf3qGxPNM8jzPsuO0Q9b_zN2g3Sd_lJiGJ7q which states that for my expected max diameter drill bit, a 1-3/16 or maybe even a 1-¼, (and since it’s not really possible to source those drill bits at all, but especially long, in any other configuration than a forstner bit) a forstner bit of that size would call for 250 RPM. There were definitely a few other bells and whistles the Rikon had that the Rockler didn’t, like indexing stops for instance, but at the end of the day, my main reason for spending $400+ more for the more expensive lathe, came down to making sure I had the low RPM potential to actually pull this off.
I agree with your assessment, especially if your lathe bed is on the edge for length. If you can get that base perfectly parallel to the centerlines of your headstock and tailstock, it really just comes down to shimming.
Sorry, I'm late to the party and just skimmed the comments so if any of this is redundant, I apologize.
My thoughts on micro-adjusting for fences in general are this is the way to go: Lets you move it to .001" accuracy which is overkill for wood but better to be too close than not close enough! For something like a drill press or router table where the fence doesn't need to be square to the tool, I leave one end of the fence fixed, set the indicator close to the spindle and tap the other end of the fence to get the change I need. Using that method does loose you some accuracy because your measuring the change of a leg of a triangle while altering the angle of the hypotenuse but it's plenty good enough for wood working.
My drill press table is very similar to the one Hairy shows in the first comment. When I first built it, I machined some aluminum keys to fit the t-track so the whole fence moved together. Those keys are long since gone because they hang and bind and I found it was quicker for me just to use an indicator and not worry about whether it stayed square to the tracks since in reality all that really matters is the radius from the centerline of the spindle to the tangent to the fence. Doesn't matter a bit what the angle if incidence is.
So am I saying a drill press table is useless? Not at all. I wouldn't be without mine. It gives a much larger surface to work on and allows for all kinds of custom jigs. So by all means, make or buy one and if you want the fence to run linearly, make it happen. And micro-adjusts are great. I just feel better seeing exactly how far I moved it rather than trusting that I moved it the amount I thought I did.
Hope that helps some and again, if it's a rehash of what others have said, apologies!
I just googled (well duck duck goed anyway) teak spearguns. What exactly is the hole you are going to drill in both ends for? I just assumed it was for the spear but the spearguns I see images of online have the spear sitting in a groove in the top of the gun.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
@Lazyman good question. Look up “hybrid spearguns” on your next search and it will be clear why. Also, I’m planning on trying to re-upload my first blog post tonight, and if I can, the reasoning will be covered there too.
Oh I see. So it sounds like after drilling the hole, you would rip it lengthwise, slicing the hole hole that is open to the top that a pipe (barrel) mounts in.
One blog that I scanned used a ball end router bit on a router table instead of trying to drill a deep hole in the end. This eliminates the need to drill deep. Of course you would use a straight bit to hog out as much as possible before running the ball end bit into it from the end.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
