Woodworking Tip: Drilling Centered Holes in Dowels

Drilling the center of a dowel can be a head-scratcher. Not only is drilling in the center an obstacle but holding the round dowel can be tricky. John shows us a simple trick by combining a couple of clamps, a scrap board, and the drill press. Using this tip, you can easily hold the dowels and accurately drill your holes.



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[scotttovey]

Take a shorter length of dowel, put it in your jig and drill a hole completely through it.
Now you have a centering piece to set up and center your jig the next time you need to drill holes through that sized dowel.

[buddyboyx]

Demonstrating that the resulting hole is perfectly centered would have been good. Otherwise good demo.

[ZeeroDubs]

I dont understand why I cant come up with this kind of crap when I'm working in the shop

[AlfredPoor]

What a great tip! The problem is that I needed this last weekend....

[graywoulf]

Thank you very much for this wonderful, innovative and very useful jig invention. Works great for center drilling 1/2" dowels. 👍👍

[Rezonances]

I thought this was going to be about how to exactly perform a fail-safe way to locating the EXACT center. Seems like laser may be the best way.

[ajayshah]

Hi, I have an issue regarding the product we make.we make wooden wheels with centre hole & sometimes it breaks exactly in centre into half.can u please give a solution whether the problem is in wood or the technique we use.

[andyfarmer]

I will certainly be using this tip. Awesomely simple once you have seen it. Now I dont have to worry about drillslip in the back of my hand lol.

[klausreviewscraftrestore]

that was really worth watching. i am going to do this from now on.

[terry]

Really nice tip! And if you had to do a lot of them would really be a time saver!

[andreallard]

The larger auxillary table that is on the drill press, would you have a video on making it or plans for it

[kendaniels]

I put mine in the lathe and when I tighten the chuck it's already centered with the drill bit on the stationary bracket...this way I can do any size dowel in about a quarter of the time it would take to make this jig...though it's a pretty clever idea.

[whatzause]

I knew before I found you by asking Siri, that you would be using a drill press 😊. If I had a drill press I wouldn’t have had to ask how to drill a concentric hole in the end of a dowel. I think I will just keep throwing away little 3/8” length dowels until I get lucky. I’ve tried various methods and still have some more ideas yet to try.

[valborchardt]

Thank you kindly. We are subscribers and really enjoy your videos. Be safe as always from South Africa

[johnkunn]

You're the winner. Thanks for the easy to understand explanation. Three previous youtube searches were all ridiculous solutions. Well, two were stupid and one did what you did, but didn't explain/show the process well enough (fast video edits without verbal explanation), although you could/should have shown the first cut you made in the scrap board.

[BDL]

That is briliant, such great thinking, It could'nt be any more exact...Thank you

[Robpearceknives]

Thank you! This is the best solution I’ve seen yet. I’m trying to drill a 1/8” hole in the end of a 3/16” micarta dowel to make a short tube.

[Dominic.Minischetti]

Thanks so much! I was trying to figure something out like this for a long while! It works great! 👍🏻

[chewar]

This is perfect!!! Thank you, need to do this same thing. I am going to make that for my project.

[mellomakes]

My drill press swivels left and right so this doesn’t work for me. How can I keep my table stationary?