Simple helpful jigs

[justsomeone]

I wanted to make some simple jigs to assist me in drilling near perfect 90 deg. holes in the center of my wheels to attach the center bearings or fixed couplers to the 1 inch keyed shaft. I do own a drill press but it is not a radial press capable of drilling holes in the center of , say a 4 ft. diameter wheel. I wanted the holes to be perfectly spaced to start off with a well balanced wheel.

[justsomeone]

I used some 3/4 inch plexyglass although I am sure any hardwood would work just as well. The holes were drilled on my drill press to the size required for the 7/16 drill bushings. 7/16 bolts are perfect for attaching the bearings or fixed couplers.

[justsomeone]

The other holes are just used to screw the jig to the wheel before drilling.

[justsomeone]

If building a 4 ft. diameter wheel , find the center of the wheel and screw down the jig and drill your holes.

[justsomeone]

Now I do end up with a 7/16 hole where a 1 inch shaft needs to go. I use this for my circle cutting jig for my router which has plenty of 7/16 holes drilled in it for different diameter wheels. After the disc is cut, you can enlarge this hole to size for the shaft. I hope this is useful to someone.

[Zhyyra]

Thanks for sharing those very handy things to know Mr Someone.

[gravityman52]

If you already have a hole in the exact spot you want the larger hole, it is very easy to use one of the sheet metal drills that are available, they will take a hole from 1/8 inch all the way up to 1 1/8 in small steps, I use them all the time, they keep the hole centered

[justsomeone]

Just out enlarging about 400 holes in my flanges bushings.

[justsomeone]

As you can see, I didn't have to enlarge them much. I just wanted to open the metric holes to standard 1/4 inch.

[rlortie]

How much magnetism does it take to hold all that swarf on a horizontal drill press table? :-)

Got a few home made tools and specialty jigs I use frequently. One I am proud of is a trammel for routing discs original designed for cutting up to eight foot diameter, but I cut it back to 6.5 feet. It is a piece of laminated flooring with 1"X 1" angle mounted to it. to that is welded two lengths of 1/4"x 20 all-thread that runs through the guide slots on the router. Held in place by screws in the router base. For fine tuning I also double nut the all-thread. For adjusting one turn of the nuts account for 1/20"

Ralph

[justsomeone]

A picture of my circle cutting jig for my router.