Build a Drill Press Table, Pocket Hole Jig, and Tenoning Jig
As with any other large power tool in your shop, the Drill Press becomes much more useful when you have a convenient and accurate way to securely clamp the workpiece.
We all want our woodworking projects to be successful. To ensure that they are, we must take care in every cut we make and every hole we drill.
Of course, it may be quicker and easier to grab a hand drill and make quick work of drilling the holes our project requires. But most projects require accuracy. Mounting a versatile drill press table on your drill press is the best way to ensure you get the accuracy you need.
This drill press table features embedded T-Track to enable you to use a variety of hold down clamps to securely clamp your work. You can purchse a variety of clamps from woodworking suppliers but it's also quite easy to make your own clamps out of scrap wood you probably have lying around.
Even if you make your own clamps, I highly reccommend you purchase some T-Track Bolts
and threaded threaded knobs that fit the bolts. Using threaded knobs is much quicker and
convenient than tightening hex head nuts with a wrench.
Some T-Track is designed for 1/4" bolts, some for 5/16" bolts, and some Track-T can accept either size. Personally, I prefer the 5/16" size as the bolts tend to slide more smoothly in the Track.
Sometimes you may need to drill the holes through the side of the workpiece instead of through the top surface. At other times, you may need to drill holes in the same location through the surface of multiple workpieces. That's why an easily adjustable fence is so important.
The fence you'll build for this drill press table features a very quick and easy way to mount or
remove the drill press table on and off your drill press. The wood clamps you make youself also make
it simple and easy to adjust the fence from front to back. You can use C-Clamps or hand suqeezeable
quick clamps
to secure your workpiece to the fence.
For those times you need to drill holes in the same location of multiple workpieces, you can clamp a simple wooden stop on the fence to establish the left to right position of the workpiece. Then you can adjust the fence so your workpiece is properly positioned front to back. This ensures the holes in each workpiece are drilled exactly in the same location.
The top of this drill press table is 18" wide by 12" deep. If you prefer a larger one, it would be easy to simply increase the size of the pieces. You can use either MDF board or plywood for this project. Personnally, I like MDF board for jigs that require flat surfaces like this drill press table because MDF is less likely to warp.
We also offer free plans for a tenoning jig and a pocket hole jig you can build that work with this
drill press table. Details for downloading the free drill press pocket hole jig and free drill press
tenoning jig plans are at the bottom of this page.
Since our plans are free, there is no risk to you. You can download and look over the plans and then decide if you want to build the project.
Copyright Notice
We hope you enjoy the free woodworking plans offered on this site. You are invited to download any of the plans free of charge for your own use. Please be aware that the plans are copyrighted and may not be distributed by any person or company except here on www.bobsplans.com.
If you know a friend that would like a copy of any of our plans, please send him/her a link to our site so they can download them from here. We always welcome new visitors.
Click the approiate Download button below for your free Drill Press Table plans, free Tenoning Jig plans, and free Pocket Hole jig plans.PDF file. When the plans open in your PDF viewer, be sure to save the file to your hard drive.
Drilling Pocket Holes With Your Drill Press
Pocket hole joints are one of the easiet ways to join two pieces of wood. In cases where only one side of the joint will be visible, a pocket hole joint is usually an excellent choice.
With pocket holes, you only drill the hole in one of the workpieces that you need to join together. Since you only drill a single piece of wood, there is no concern with drilling a hole in the other piece and getting it in exactly in the same loaction as you would need to do with dowel joints.
You simply apply some glue, secure the pieces with a pocket hole face clamp, and insert the pocket hole screw. The screw remains in the joint and serves as both a dowel pin and permanent clamp.
Cutting Round Tenons With Your Drill Press
Sometimes, you may have a need to cut a round tenon on a work piece. You can easily cut a round tenon on the end of a workpiece by clamping the workpiece to a jig like the one pictured above.
Note that this jig is essentially the same idea as the tenoning jig for we offer free plans in our table saw jig set. With a little imagination, you could make a single tenoning jig that would work on both the table saw sled and drill press table.
DrillPressTable.htm (09-17-2023)