Project Information
This is a drill press I made. I always thought I was pretty good at eyeballing a straight hole but I was making a movie rack with long dowels inserted in the holes I drilled and a four foot dowel really exaggerates even minor errors so I decided to make a drill press from some scrap wood so I could finish up the project. There are three basic parts to it which you can see. The 2×4 that mounts to my workbench, the mount for the drill and the "riser" or whatever you want to call it that the drill mount rides up and down on. I started by routing a 1/2" groove, 1/2" deep and 1/2" back from the edge of the 2' 2×4. I then cut the 2×4 in half to use for the table mount and the drill mount. I then routed two longer boards in the same way to use for the riser and connect them using scrap pieces of 3/4 plywood. Last was the mount which you can see I custom made to hold my cheap B&D drill to the 2×4 section. It is hinged on the top with a wingnut to hold the drill in so it's easily removable. I use a clamp to set the depth of cut. The piece of 2×4 mounted to the table has a stop on the side so when I slide the riser on, it doesn't just drop all the way to the floor. I did some shimming on the mount to square it all up. The best thing about it is I can just remove the entire thing and set it aside except for the one piece that stays attached to the table leg. It works surprisingly well and is really pretty stable. I did make a second pass on the router table with all the pieces, with tiny adjustments made to loosen up the slots to just over 1/2" to allow it to slide up and down better. It's not so much that I'm cheap, it's just that I needed the tool and needed it that night so I made my own and have never seen a need for anything else since.