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b How to drill a perfectly straight hole in a post?
I intend to build a four post bed. Each post will consist of 3 sections woodturned individually. I am a little concerned about boring a centered hole in the post sections to join them together. Each post section will be about 26″ long, giving the posts a total finished length of 6’6″. Each post section will be left with a tenon/pin to join it to the next. Any suggestions on how to drill a perfectly centred hole in order to join the pieces together would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks.
Dave
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Several comments --
The drive center and the tail stock center should give you a centering mark that will be the loci/central axis/whatever of the turned stock. If you do not trust your ability to free hand bore from these points, you have two other options:
The first would be to center bore through the headstock or tail stock of your lathe (depending on which one, if any allows you to do that). The second technique would be to prebore the turning squares and then use those holes for aligning the headstock and tail stock.
As a further suggestion, consider the design detail at the piece interface/joint. A couple of beads at these points might "hide" slight variation in final fit. If you are hand turning these pieces, there will exist some dimensional variation you will have to cope with (make that deal with) anyway.
*Dave, If you haven't got a drill-press deep enough to take your sections, or a drill-chuck for your tailstock, then you will have to drill them by hand. Twist drills or spade bits work best into end-grain (usually). Structurally, there is little to be gained by making the dowel holes more than a couple of inches deep, and the shorter the dowel, the easier the alignment. Hand-boring will certainly get you a couple of slightly off-axis holes, no matter how good you are, so you will have to turn the matching dowels a little looser than you might like, and use a gap-filling glue like epoxy when joinup time comes. Always pre-bore before turning, then at least the start of the hole is centered, and if you don't have a bullnose fitting for your tailstock, it's easy to turn a plug to put in the hole while turning.In any case, as Stanley says, incorporate a bead at the join to disguise it, and remember to carefully re-align the grain (you should try to rejoin the pieces as they were cut from the original stock). You'll be surprised how easy it is to get an 'invisible' join.Cheers,IW
*Dave,By now you have probably completed your bed posts, however, for what its worth; Remove the drive center from the lathe head stock and replace it with a drill chuck. Mount the post segment between the drill center and the tail stock center. Run the lathe at the lowest speed and advance the drill into the work using the tail stock feed feature. This is a foolproof method to ensure the drilled hole is aligned properly.
*FWIW, I'd offer an alternative to drilling altogether, and is virtually un-noticeable. Resaw your post and joint the faces smooth. Set up your router with a router fence and core box bit to dia. of your hole. Route a semi-circular hole in the middle of each piece and use yellow glue to glue up the post. You will have to compensate for the removal of the small amount of stock due to resawing and jointing, but you will be amazed at how unobvious the resulting joint will be. I've used this technique sucessfully when I build lamps and want a wire chase in a center post. People ask me how I got the wire in a 6' piece and I kid them that I have a i really long drill bit.
*You guys could laugh at me, but this sort of thing is exactly why i haven't sold my Shopsmith in the last 20 years--piece o' cake!
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