Boxing a Drill Guide without gloves.

Boys and Girls,

A while back, I wrote a blog about ”Lazarusing” my vertical drilling prowess away from the drill press, however, when I saw the promotional videos for the Woodpeckers Drill Guide, I was impressed enough to part with my shekels and relegate my Triton drill along with it’s surrogate Ryobi battery to the redundant bucket.

After countless months of waiting for delivery (ordered Jan 2021) my gizmo finally arrived in September.

One thing I can say for Woodpecker$, they certainly know how to package an item for shipment… it was harder to unwrap than most of my puzzles (that everyone keeps complaining about)…

To unwrap the sucker, I had to destroy the cardboard box spilling the contents all over my bench,

only to find my bench dogs were asleep in their kennel

and not prepared to herd all the components up, though it seems some were absent… probably out on the town or in my vino supply.

Putting on my disguise and getting to work,

I managed to herd them up to a manageable group,

To keep them corralled, I decided to build a box out of MDF… it may not be purdy, but it’s planned to be practical. The resultant box is not for a woodie or a pecker but for the Woodpecker$’ Drill Guide.

First stop was Sketchup

click on the above picture for an animation of the SketchUp model’s “scenes”.
As always, the ball bounced through Layout → CorelDraw → Trotec laser… many (well most, more on this later) of the pitfalls and design inconsistencies were revealed in the SketchUp model, long before any wood (MDF) was cut.

Unfortunatelly the bouncing ball missed my camera so this was the first happy snap I took off the build,

with a couple of trays to house the rods.

Even dedicated a spot for the chuck key,

badly needed as the supplied chuck was too difficult to swap-out for a keyless one.

One good thing about laser cut MDF ”woodworking“ is that there is no mess and the item can be glued up in my office between smart-arsed comments I manage to formulate for LJ blogs after copious glasses of vino… no recalcitrant machinery there to clip my unsober wings… which again failed to operate my happy-snapper.

The one for the short rods was glued in as the rods were easy to take out of that tray, however, the 6 long ones were in a lift out tray for easier manipulation. I flocked both of the rod trays to add a bit of colour and use up a bit of my flocking stockpile,

Unfortunately the other compartments were already glued in which could have made flocking a tad difficult… so no flock it.

Found some new ”clamps”,

in the form of some large rubber bands which I pinched form my dodgy left arm’s physio regime,

Was tossing up whether to do a review on this drill guide, however, I feel that the ones presented by the professionals

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AG1Q9gsmWc
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD_gKF8AbbQ
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO-lWs5Ii4c

can do it more justice then whatever I could blunder through, even with my alluring animal nightie…

Nevertheless, I couldn’t avoid the theatrical glitz of the camera and made a quick dirty video of the maiden Unboxing the box.

Not having tested the fit prior to the video, with the exception of some glue up test fits, I found that the removable tray significantly interfered with the removal of the drill guide from the box. After some quick sanding and buffing, it inserted/extracted without problems.
Later inspection revealed that in SketchUp I had a slight incorrect 1mm overlay that screwed up my exact measurements,

which also affected the width of the tray, however, that was detected and sanded prior to the video.

I haven’t put the drill guide through its full paces, but initial tests and extrapolated expectations would not denude me in giving it a premature 5 star rating.
There is nothing more I could add other than draw LJ members to the guide’s existence… for those members that choose to boycott Woodpecker$’ sometimes over priced offerings… Personally, you do get quality, functionality and versatility for your sacrificial shekels.

Before I close this blog, I’d like to give a shout-out to my buddy rc, not ‘cause he’s good looking or that he could have generously bought me a free cask-o-vino, but an understanding towards his perseverance of moving his machinery into his yard to woodwork and move it back for nighty-nights.
To get access to my buffer several times, I had to wheel just one mobile lathe,

1 meter to the left

(and return it) each time, which just totally pisses me off… maybe rc played fetch a lot in a past life.

Keep safe, jocks... and your jocks, safe!

-- If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD