Shopsmith Forums

Bouncing off algale's recent post about routing angled mortises, I thought I would share some pix of another application of the versatile tilting table. Its funny how many table saw and drill press jigs I see in the woodworking magazines that are designed to do things the Shopsmith, by virtue of its tilting table can already do on its own. Anyway, for the project I am working on I needed to drill some pocket screw holes in the edge of a couple of panels. The panels are each 17 x 32 and the pocket screw holes needed to go from the inside top of each panel through the center of the panel's short edge. Using the Shopsmith in its horizontal drilling mode, I tilted the table 15 degrees and easily drilled the holes from the edge. I followed up by making a counter bore recess at each hole on the inside of the panel with a hand-held electric drill. I used a square to align the panels on the table and a couple of quick clamps to hold it steady and took it nice and slow when drilling. Worked perfectly.

I am so conditioned to drilling pocket holes from the other direction (from the face through the edge) that I doubt I would have ever thought of drilling from the edge through the face.

The Mark V is an amazingly versatile machine, that's for sure.

Thanks for the post I am adding this to my list of useful ideas.