If a tool isn’t convenient to use, it’s tempting to find a way to skip using it. That’s the case with my drill press. Often I only need to make one or two holes with it and rather than drag it out from under the bench, I just use a hand drill. To make this a more useful part of the process, I created a table for it.
The design comes from one of Steve Ramsey’s older videos, and he got the design from a magazine. You only need a few scraps of wood to build it and it has a lot of great features. A couple toilet bolts slide into the T-track and go up through the fence to make the fence easily adjustable (or removable). The piece of wood directly under the drill bit slides out and is replaceable so after it gets beat up, you can just slide a new one in.
I built this in an afternoon and I’m really happy with how it turned out. The only change I’d made if I was redoing this would be to make the T-track narrower so that the toilet bolt head couldn’t spin in the track. That would make it easier to tighten the nuts on top.
I’ve found a spot for this on my bench so we’ll see if I’m able to save some time and use it in more projects.
Very nice. And yes, you want to do something so that you can tighten the fence without messing with spinning bolt heads every time.