.....without a lathe.
Not everyone has a lathe to get a hole perfectly centred, so try this method, I'll explain then look at the photo's to see what I mean.
This works if you have a drill press.... mount your centre drill or ordinary drill bit into the drill press, in the case of an ordinary drill bit upside down, so that the cutting end is in the chuck.
I have a seperate Jacobs style chuck for this part but you can get by without it. The jacobs chuck is mounted on a machine vice, as I said you can get away with just the vice. Lower the drill press so that the end of the bit or centre drill enters the Jacobs chuck or the vice. Tighten the chuck or vice, then carefully tighten the bolts of the vice to the drill press bed.
Release the drill press grip from the tool and allow to return to its up position. You now have both the tool and the drill press aligned perfectly. The trick is to mount your piece of rod in the drill press chuck, you are turning the material and the tool stays static and not the other way around. This in principle is turning your drill press into a lathe. Your hole will be centred perfectly on your workpiece. Of course it only works on round/hexagonal material and only to a size of the chuck on your drill press, but as these are usually 13mm, there is not much on a model that requires centre drilling on anything larger than this.
In the diagram you can see me using a centre drill of 4mm to make a hole through the blank of a brass gear held in the drill chuck.
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Topic: How to centre drill..... (Read 2128 times)