Drilling perpendicular holes in stuff

When it comes to DIY I am happy to admit that while I attack it with a lot of enthusiasm, the results are not always perfect.
Mostly it goes OK, but there are always small things that bugger it up.

One thing I have always struggled with is drilling a hole perpendicular to a surface; they generally end up a bit wonky.

I bought some new door handles recently & rather than normal wood screws fastening them to the door, they have come with a male/female screw arrangement that requires a clearance hole to be drilled through the entire door & perfect alignment of the two parts of the screw; basically one half is a normal screw & the other is a threaded tube to receive the ‘normal screw’.
Because the heads are countersunk, they will pull into the countersink so the hole needs to be square to the door surface or it will all go to cock.

At the moment, I have resorted to some bog standard countersunk wood screws just to get them fitted, but ideally would like to replace them with the fittings that came with the handles.

I have found a drill guide on the Axminster website that I thought might help.
http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-drill-guide

Yeah, I should probably MTFU and do it by eye, but I know it will go wrong and I’ll have to buy a new door.
Anyone used one of those guides? Will it work?

The other option is to get some chrome plated wood screws & use them instead, but that feels like cheating.

If that drill guide actually works, I reckon it would get a lot of use….

It’s extremely difficult to do by eye, there’s no shame in using a guide.

take door off and stick it in the pillar drill……*

*i am not being serious.

It would be a lot easier to take the doors off the hinges and work with them horizontal – it just seems so much easier judging if something’s square that way.

That Axminster thing looks fine. One of my drills has a little bullseye level on the end of the body to help get it square when drilling vertically.

Depends on the size of the hole and may be overkill but plunging a hole with a router would do it too.

You can use a block of wood cut square at the end with a line drawn across at 90o as a guide – a 50mm bit of wood and 70-80mm of drill bit should get far enough in that the hole won’t wander too far.

I use a pillar drill if I want it perpendicular. Can be a bit tricky with large pieces:

Fixing Garden Bench by Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

Ah good. Not just me then, 😀

Yeah, not sure I could be bothered to take the door off & put in a pillar drill (if I had one) – if that was the only solution, I think I’d just use normal wood screws.
I would like a pillar drill though (and a ton of other ‘proper’ tools).

Might give that guide a go. Like I say, I think that once I’ve got it I’ll find loads of uses for it…

Ta.

You could cut a v in a block of wood and use that as your guide.

It’s not precise, but better than doing it by eye.

I would like a pillar drill though

They’re pretty cheap – a few basic Chinese models re-branded and sold as Axminster, ToolMart etc…

For small wood screws to hold a door handle on, you might get away with using a bradawl to mark the centre and start the hole, then let the screw do the hard work. It’ll probably be “perpendicular enough”.

This is less versatile than the thing you linked to but probably easier for ad-hoc use.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-drill-guide-kit

piece of 2×1″ planed timber with various perpendicular holes drilled in it of different sizes (mine was done by my neighbour who’s a proper joiner on his pillar drill)

Clamp that onto whatever you want to drill into, and use it as a guide. Unless you’re a total numpty it’s difficult to go wrong.

The item Wwaswas linked to is pretty shit as it has too much play. It’s better than nothing but using a tri square is the easiest way I’ve found in most situations. Lean the square on the flat and as long as the square itself is all good and, uh… square you can lean part of the drill body on the other part of the square. There’s still a degree of eye alignment going on but it’s the closest way. IMO.

To be honest I’d call in a tradesman, if however, he turns up in any vehicle newer than 3 years old tell him to **** off the overcharging git… 😉

For a perpendicular hole in a wall use an oversized washer over the drill bit. If it runs down the drill you’re angling it down, if it runs up towards the chuck you’re angling it up. You can eye the left to right pretty accurately. Works for me.

What do you do when you have to drill holes straight down…?

😉

Edit : Or upwards, come to that. A tri square every time for me if the fitting is that important.

What do you do when you have to drill holes straight down…?

Edit : Or upwards, come to that…

Use a maglock drill if it’s ferrous..

Drilling new post holes (as the originals were wrong) by Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

That’s a very nice bit of kit!

Watched as the company idiot ( who unbeknown to me, had left the mag drill magnetised to the underside of a beam without using the safety chain) turn off the genset to talk to me.
They make a nice dent in the floor when they hit it from 3 metres up. Good job it was the floor and not someone’s head.

Nice workshop BTW

sam_underhill – Member

For small wood screws to hold a door handle on, you might get away with using a bradawl to mark the centre and start the hole, then let the screw do the hard work. It’ll probably be “perpendicular enough”.

Yeah, normal wood screws are my fall back option. I’ve currently used normal zinc plated countersunk screws that were in my tool box to get them on.

But the handles came with:

…a male/female screw arrangement that requires a clearance hole to be drilled through the entire door & perfect alignment of the two parts of the screw; basically one half is a normal screw & the other is a threaded tube to receive the ‘normal screw’.

Like these:

but the female part is much longer than that. If the hole isn’t nice and square, the hole won’t line up with the handle on the other side.

Although thinking about it, it is the handle fascia that holds the fastener in place, so I could theoretically drill a much larger hole through to give tons of clearance & ‘wonky error’ for the fastener.

Over-thinking the whole bloody thing as ever! 😆

wwaswas – Member

This is less versatile than the thing you linked to but probably easier for ad-hoc use.

Yeah, I saw that but thought it looked a bit limited. I think I’d rather pay a bit more and have something that can handle a wider range of dril bits.
I need to increase the aperture in the bathroom door for a mortice latch, rather than the normal latch with throw bolt currently fitted. I was gonna use a spade bit or Auger bit to drill out the space for the latch, which the more expensive drill guide will still let me use.

Glue?

😉

I had a quick look for a sturdier one than the first one and spotted this: http://www.rutlands.co.uk/sp+woodworking-power-tool-accessories-drilling-boring-drill-stands-guides-precision-drill-guide-dakota+dkz22?utm_campaign=Googlebase&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=Googlebase&gclid=CjwKEAjw1_KwBRDEz_WvncL4jGwSJAAEym0duq175KwRK6NHw0UqRPiYwctDkuI-cc6pRwkNk1f_XhoCqmDw_wcB

an interesting concept with it’s own chuck and I wonder how well it holds it angle? (not holding up much hope personally).

One you linked to should be fine, would do as one review suggests and fix it to some timber and clamp that to the door though.

I’ve got a drill stand that you fix your drill to, and then rest it on the thing you’re drilling, not unlike the photo above, but a bit more basic.
I think I can get it on the bike if you need to borrow it.

Edit, on the right in this photo (don’t ask what I’m doing):

I like the look of this one, super simple

http://www.rutlands.co.uk/sp+woodworking-power-tool-accessories-drilling-boring-drill-stands-guides-v-drill-guide-block-metric+dk7017

EDIT: Just bought one off Ebay for £27 posted…

To the OP – the Axminster drill guide in your 1st is exactly what you need and will do the job well without costing too much . I have a similar one and its great for portability/access – one caveat – it is designed for use with the std
43mm collar you get with a corded drill – not most battery drills.

What’s stopping you drilling the holes oversized, as long as the handle covers the hole, you will still be able to level the handles off before nipping up?

andyl – I saw that one on some US sites, but not UK ones. It allows angles (which the Axminster one apparently does, but only by way of pushing the guide legs through the bottom & leaning on them & the edge of the bottom plate.
That Rutlands one has a built in chuck & might be more than i need. A good find though, thanks. Something to consider.

richmars…cheers for the offer. Your version looks very similar to the Axminster version. I’ll probably just buy that one to be honest – as i said above- probably one of those things that I’ll use loads once I’ve got it.
You look like you’ve used it to convert your drill into a wood turning lathe!
(we should meet for a Costa one lunch time soon!)

footflaps – that guide does look handy – no good for spade bits or Auger bits, which I’ll also probably be wanting to use it for at some point…

finishthat – cheers for the heads up. I’ll be using a corded Black & Decker.

ski – yeah, that’s what I said in my post above – I could just use a decently over-sized hole as the handle fascia will cover it up & the fastener is held in place by the fascia itself. Alignment is not inmportant as there’ll be enough clearance to accomodate a straight path through. Just seems like a bodge way of doing it 🙂

It’s been used a few times, sometimes for what it was designed for!
(Not wood turning, foam core for carbon tubes, a few years ago)

What’s wrong with sticking with how you’ve already attached it rather than trying to use the arbitrary screw style which came with the handles?

Also, using a square (one of the ones with a sliding rule), mark points on both sides of the door and drill from either side to meet in the middle. As somebody else has mentioned, drill clearance holes, not holes the exact diameter of the fixings. So give yourself a couple of mm clearance. It’ll be easier to go square to halfway though the door than all the way through. Also prevents a big chunk of door splintering out as you come through. This is what I’ve always done when fitting door furniture like that to oak doors.