Thread: Re-drilling the pivot hole in the tang

Originally Posted by mackie

The way I make sure my drill press is drilling perpendicular is to drill a hole in a 2x4 or thicker piece and then stick a rod in the hole and check for square. It has worked for me to get the pivot hole in pocket knives. Before drilling I put a prop under the front of the drill press table. When drilling steel, the table will flex forward just a hair due to lack of support on the front of the table. It is very slight but I built a small metal lathe from scratch once and accuracy was important. That is how I drill the end of a rod. I drill a hole the size of the rod and stick it in the hole and then drill the end. Mack

Thanks Mack,
I'll give the timber trick a go. I normally check the drill bit with a sliding protractor I have (for measuring golf club head angles). I don't think there would be much movement in the support table as I am only drilling through the epoxy steel, fairly simple and little pressure is required. I think my major problem lies in getting the tang perpendicular to the drill bit. I normally just lay the razor on a piece of timber, but as I'm sure you know tangs are most often not uniformally thick but taper towards the end. Makes it hard to keep the tang perpendicular.

I've only done one so far, it had an egg shaped hole that I cleaned up with a 3/32nd drill bit inserted the same size tube and repinned with 1/16th brass rod simple fast and easy.