There are those among us who can pick up a drill, place it on a workpiece and drill a straight hole. Then, there are the remaining 99.9% of us. A drill press solves the problem…as long as the piece you want to drill fits. But if you’re not one of the 0.1% and you want a straight hole in the middle of a large piece of plywood, or in an installed cabinet, or in anything you can’t get to your drill press (or you don’t have a drill press), you want to keep reading. Introducing Woodpeckers Auto-Line Drill Guide. This new tool keeps your drill bit perfectly perpendicular while you drill, but it goes further. We added a versatile base and fence system that makes it simple to keep your hole locations right on target. Not recommended to be used with an impact driver.
Auto-Line Drill Guide ™
The Auto-Line starts with a high quality 1/2" chuck supported by a pair of sealed ball bearings. The shaft end is a standard quick-release fitting that will fit any cordless or corded drill. The chuck carrier holds a pair of Teflon sleeves which ride on two steel columns, keeping the chuck perfectly vertical while you drill. One column has a spring to help you control your cut and the other has an adjustable stop collar. Notice the stop collar column has a taper milled into it. The stop needs only fingertip pressure to hold position…it’s nearly impossible to knock the stop out of position when the lock is tightened onto the taper.
The base of the Auto-Line has laser engraved centerlines on the perimeter of the opening. Just align the bright white index marks with the witness marks on your stock for precise hole location. There’s a vee-groove milled into the base to safely drill round stock. The opening in the base has clearance for drills up to 3/4". When you need to drill holes larger than 3/4", simply remove the column caps, turn the chuck carrier around so it is outside the base and drill up to 2" holes.
When you need holes centered on a board, mount the centering pins in the base and rotate until one pin is tight against each side of the stock. Now your bit is perfectly centered. It works on stock up to 3-1/8" wide. The centering pins store conveniently right on the top of the base when they’re not in use. We machined the Allen wrench to install the pins onto the bottom of the column caps…you’ll never have to sort through that coffee can full of Allen wrenches to find the right one.
The versatile fence adjusts to the base along a pair of steel guide rods. As shown in the photos above, the fence can slide under the base for working close to an edge, or turn it around to get the maximum distance. When you’re working on a narrow edge, position the fence so the broad face provides extra support. And, when you’re not using the fence at all, turn it so the thin edge provides an “outrigger” to improve stability. The base is drilled and tapped for the fence guide rods on all four edges…right, left, front or back…there’s always a direction you can extend the fence. A set of optional fence guide rod extensions adds either 12" or 24" to the basic fence capacity of 7".
Like all Woodpeckers products, the Auto-Line Drill Guide is precisely machined and carefully inspected in our Strongsville, Ohio factory (just south of Cleveland).
- Country of Manufacture: United States
Additional Info
- Creating perfectly perpendicular holes in large pieces of plywood that cannot be accommodated by a traditional drill press
- Drilling straight holes in installed cabinets or furniture without the need to dismantle them
- Precision drilling in projects where exact hole location is crucial, thanks to the versatile base and fence system
- Safe and accurate drilling in round stock, facilitated by the vee-groove in the base
- Drilling holes larger than 3/4" up to 2" by adjusting the chuck carrier position
- Centering holes on boards up to 3-1/8" wide with the use of centering pins for perfectly aligned drilling
- Adjusting the fence for added support and stability when working on narrow edges or close to edges
- Expanding the fence capacity with optional guide rod extensions for larger projects
- Improving workshop efficiency by eliminating the need to search for the right Allen wrench, thanks to the machined storage on the device
Download Instructions Manual
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