Simple drilling fixture

John M Cohea

John M Cohea

Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
2,655
I'm sure there are a few newbies, and maybe a few old salts, that have trouble drilling straight holes through contored handle material such as stag or ivory. Here is a fixture I made for that purpose. All it is is a piece of channel iron with a bunch of holes drilled in it, then surace ground on both sides as well as the edges. To drill your holes all you have to do is spot glue one of your scales to one side of your tang or handle frame, then clamp to the underside of the fixture, as shown in the pic.Put a hole in your predrilled tang in one of the holes in the fixture and drill. Keep moving and clamping until your finished with the scale. Pop it off, spot glue the other scale to the other side and repeat the process. When your done you will have straight, true holes through both scales. Hope this helps a few folks.
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That's what I do too, though my channel iron is much smaller than yours; I have channel iron envy! :D

Tinbasher, he's talking about drilling handle material that is not flat - ever.

Now, what I'd like to see is a good way to hold unsymmetrical handles vertically for drilling hidden tangs...
 
John , thats a neat idea. It leaves me with a thought that may be more convenient . Take the channel iron, say 2"x2"x10" , weld a piece of flat stock at each end of the channel opening. Now you have your idea but with a opening instead of the drilled holes in the channel . saves on having to unclamp move and reclamp . I have a vise with an 8" jaw opening , so I just leave the tang 1/2" longer than it's finished size and lay the steel down between the openings then finish the grinding after the scales are drilled . Hope this also helps others. It's always nice to make things a little easier .
 
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