Quote Originally Posted by mackie View Post
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.