Good evening folks. I am in need of some insight and brain fog clearing. I need to drill holes in a cylinder. Each hole is 60 degrees left and right of dead center. I just can’t wrap my head around this and so before I screw the part up, I thought I’d ask this brain trust for their help. I am providing a sketch of what I need to do. I’m sure there’s a simple solution but I sure can’t visualize it.
Combating movement is key. If it rolls it's hard to catch up, so use a 2 x 4 or similar, and cut a V notch in it big enough to set the cylinder down into. Clamp it into the carrier so it is still. After that some trial and error with a dowel, approximate size, is your friend.
But then I like gadgets and not afraid to part with my shekels (like the proverbial fool)... and give me an excuse to buy, Unfortunately I already have their other "similar"... and even I have limits on my moments of weakness.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
If it’s important enough to make a jig for, it would be simple enough to weld some tube with a matching ID to the your drill bit to a section of pipe with an ID matching the pipe OD you want to drill. Not hard to set angles, and the welds don’t have to be perfect to act as a drill guide.
Or, you could make it out of wood. I envision a block of wood, drilled along the long axis with a large forstner bit to match the OD of pipe you want to drill, then split along that axis to give you a half round trough along the long axis. Then lay out your total angle across the top and cut some flats so your bit hits the wood at 90°, but is 30° off center (and 60° offset from each other). Then drill straight through the block to create drill guides. Clamp the block to your pipe, then lube up the holes and drill away. Two drill guides keep you from screwing up alignment of a second drilling operation, but one drill guide would certainly work…you just need to layout your angles on the work piece and line up the guide.
Someone will come up with something simpler, but that’s what I got off the top of my head.
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
Having a jig as above would perfect the angle part. Thing there will likely come down to ? Need 3 holes? Then something like Ducky points to I have the Rockler version, with the tilting base, but it was an expenditure. That makes cutting pipe, and drilling holes, and welding together something like Ryan talks about as the best jig.
For the simple version setting it in a V, clamping it strong as you can, and using an angle gauge held up as a visual guide, and go for it. Most of the chair makers I have met, do this for the rake on chair legs, so it can work on special needs work.
Search Miter finder gauge, protractor, angle finder gauge, many of them out there from very cheap, to pretty expensive.
Thanks everyone for your insights. I really appreciate it. I took what everyone offered and, just like when I was a programmer, I dreamt the entire night about doing this work. So, this morning, I made a simple jig using double stick tape and two rails with 60 degree edges. I clamped them to the cylinder and used my hand drill to drill all the aligned holes. Here are some photos of the outcome. Again, thank you everyone.
Front view of the jig setup. The rails will support the drill bit
Rearward view showing the use of the double stick tape
Dilling completed
Completed piece with the rails in place. I made another quick jig to drill the 3/16" rail inserts with the 3/32" hole for the hand rails. For those of you who have already build the T&J Olde 99 Locomotive, it's about 1/2 way complete with only straight forward work left.
Birthdays Dutchy. Too many of them is like a curse, and a gift.
A gift because it gives you that rich history of all the things you have learned, and figured out.
A curse, because you can't remember a lot of them. :-))
The thing I hate the most is trying all day to remember something, and can't. You are almost sure to wake up from a sound sleep at 3AM, but the thing you couldn't remember is right there. BUT you better write it down, cause if you manage to fall back asleep, you'll forget it again. :-)
