Carlo Reuter's horizontal boring jigCarlo Reuter sent me some pictures of a horizontal boring jig that he built, inspired by my simple horizontal boring jig. He provided a short description: "The whole device consists of beech wood as well as of plywood. The two sleds with the drill holder and with the work piece slide in a dove tail guide. The height adjustment is operated by turning the crank." A lever is very important - it can take a lot of force to drill, especially when drilling in end grain with a large bit. A crank for moving the drill up and down. You an also see the dovetail slide which allows the drill mount to move forwards and back.
Another dovetail slide allows the platform with the clamp to move side to side. The cross slide can also be locked in various positions by inserting a 6 mm dowel. With my own horizontal boring jig, I found it was hard to get the drill to really guide the bit. With hand drills with plastic housings, the main shaft just isn't mounted in the drill rigidly enough. The hand drill Carlo is using is much better than any drill I tried it with, I'm sure this makes for much better results. My own solution to the problem was to build a dedicated horizontal boring machine
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