Pen blank vise for knives

[JTknives]

There is a wood working channel on youtube I watch and the other day he turned a pen. he used a rather sick centering vise for drilling the hole down the center of the wood blank. I instantly though it would sure be slick if it would work for knife handle blocks. Anyone tryied one?

 

[Fish30114]

JT, I have vice/vices like that and they will certainly help you drill center if you have a square blank, then you just need to have the right size drill bit and length as well. I have used it a few times when I had a square blank I was starting with like say for a blind tang Kitchen Knife--I don't do many blind tang knives, but it will help you maintain center, of course you still need to get this vice setup correctly to get your drill bit to start at center, so I guess it's more of a maintaining center tool, instead of finding center

 

[Lieblad]

Thats handy, but nothing unique or new. A couple of my vises & FloatLock has ”V” grooves too.

 

[JTknives]

I normally just tilt my drill press table 90 deg and clamp the block to the side of it. run the bit down as far as it will go and then adjust the table up and re center on the drill bit and finish the hole if i'm doing a through tang.

 

[jdm61]

I have a couple of cheap milling vices. On my last hidden tang kitchen knife, I used a 3/8 dowel core. What I did was drill the ferrule on my mill drill with a small pilot hole and then drilled a 3/8 hole about halfway in then opened up the slot with a small router bit in the mill-drill. For the main part of handle I started on my big 17 inch drill press with the vice and a 3/16 bit and then opened it up with the 3/8, I used a level and a machinist square to line everything up

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I use my turning/pen vise to drill hidden tang handles.

 

[tiguy7]

If you put the part in the chuck and spin it against a stationary drill, the combination becomes center seeking.

 

[Randy3000]

I used to build spiral staircases out of wood and I'd turn the center posts and then drill a 1.5" hole in them for a big threaded rod that ran through all the center blocks and basically bolted the entire staircase together.

There was this huge drill press and we used a specialy designed pneumatic system that would hold the turned posts in place while drilling. You'd set a post on a hole and then hit a button and rubber tubing would inflated with air and hold the post straight and tight, and then deflated with another button.

That was a pretty slick setup. The threaded rod fit tight in the hole and posts always lined up perfectly when assembling the staircase.