Drill Straight Holes Every Time!

You don’t need a drill press or commercial drill guide to drill perpendicular holes. With this simple to make wooden guide, you can use your handheld drill motor and get flawless results!

If you’ve ever put a lot of work into a project, only to have it spoiled or diminished by a crooked or ragged hole, then you’ll love this guide and technique! When you’ve just built a workbench, you don’t want to risk screwing up drilling the dog holes for the bench’s clamping system. No fear of that now!

For many, it is really difficult to correctly sight down the edges of the drill bit to assure that bit is drilling absolutely vertical in relation to the surface. That’s because there are confusing edges and sightlines that compete for your attention. You can now cut through all that visual clutter and use only the shaft of the drill bit, held in a perfect position, to get precise results!

Better yet, the guide is cheap and easy to make, and you can use it with twist, paddle and Forstner bits.

Easy, fast, inexpensive, and most of all effective. What’s not to love? When it comes to setting up for precise drilling, JUST DO IT YOURSELF! (JDIY)

[justinkayce]

Wait a sec. How can you achieve depth? The shaft on the forester bit is quite short. The drill head hits the guide block barely after it penetrates the workpiece.

[aball]

Brilliant! I needed a way to drill a straight hole with a forstner bit and this is perfect. So happy I found you.

Thank you. A lot of times my work just won't fit on my drill press. You just got a new subscriber.

[coreygrua]

Now that is a tool I’m going to make on Monday. Many thanks!

[ReadTheBible]

Good idea. Being a banjo player I'm subscribing because of your choice of music and I like wood working. Thanks for the video.

[masonschneider]

How many uses would you typically get out of it? Wouldn't the drill bit chew away at the wood quickly after each use?

[drac]

Always excellent tips! I never know what you're going to post, and it's always very interesting.

[edwynncastillo]

Thank you for sharing this video. It's very helpful.

[hyde]

So far best technique on YouTube yet for drilling straight 90.

[CalibreDesigns]

A few years ago, I rigged up one of my drills so the drill bit was was vertical, then I glued a 2-axis spirit bubble to the back end. It doesn't keep it straight, that's down to the user, but it's perfect for making sure you're within a degree or two when you first start a hole. Really handy if you have to bottom out the drill bit and there's not enough to square it up against the workpiece.

Suprised more drill manufacturers don't include spirit bubbles by default, or have flat, parallel surfaces either side so you can square up the drill rather than the drill bit

[extra_nothing]

ah this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

[MostlySunny]

DF, I need to make one of your jigs but I don't have a band saw and don't think a jigsaw would work well. Would you mind if I stop by someday to use your bandsaw? LOL

[lucasmolinafarre]

I watched a lot of videos trying to figure out how to drill straight holes without a drill press and this one is the certantly the best. Thank you!

[cerduteter]

Haha I remember I once made a drill guide by making free hand drill holes on a piece of wood, I ended doing like 20 holes until I finally got a very perfect hole that can be used as a guide to make holes on another surfaces, I marked the straight hole because the guide looked like cheese with all those holes, I did not bother doing a new guide using the previous guide. Good tips in this video, thanks.

[leif-andersbanan]

Great! Thank you! I'm thinking you could make the v shape smaller with flat cutoffs (cut off the points of the "v" 90 degrees and mate with an identical piece, but without the handle. Two wingscrews hold them and let you almost down on the drill bit. If you want to ruin the simplicity which is it's great selling point. This was not such a good idea actually.

[Zanzubaa]

Simple and effective. Worked great, TY.

[KishoreTS-ee]

Great idea Thanks. One quick question, if we invert the 2nd one, it can be used for normal bits too right? Why we need separate as you shown first?

[beefknuckles]

Awesome tip... thanks Jay! P.S. love that hat!

[MrJcasilva]

show de bola! greetins from Brazil. tks

[yojackleon]

Nice, tip, the hole doesn't look straight though, might just be the video, can you mark both sides of the block to prove the hole is straight ?