mass production hole jig idea

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Suppose you had a lot of diecast boxes you wanted to put holes in...
If you got a piece of wood (preferably thick plywood) and put hard brass screws in it, in a pattern of the holes, with the screws peeking out on the other side.. then you could put this on top of the box & whack it with a mallet & the screw tips would make 'starter' marks in the soft metal.
When the tips wear down I guess you could replace the screws or sharpen them (don't use nails, they would push back).
Annoyingly, I don't have any need to do this myself :roll: but, if it is useful for anyone here, enjoy! I thought of it when I was studying a problem of assembling commercial bookshelves with complex mounting brackets. I know it's gonna help there!!

[Mark Hammer]

It would work fine, but you would need 3 piece of wood: two to form a corner for squaring/positioning purposes, and the third on the top for the screws.  (Can you guess my dad was a machinist?)

Clever idea, though, for medium-sized runs.  If I was making thousands, there would likely be something more sophisticated.

[petemoore]

Get a 1/4 thick metal sheet, larger than the top of the box, so 3 centering screws can be tapped/installed to extend to touch the flat sides of the box [2 for a long side and 1 for a short side of the box should do] drill, tap, large screws along the edge of the plate ...now you have a plate that will lay over the top of the box in the same two dimensional orientation when looking from the top, every time.
 Clamp this onto the box, centering screws touching the 2 sides. Use the pre-existing perfectly drilled box as a template to mark the holes in the drill hole marking template, drill them to whatever size drill/tap/screw size you choose...I'd go with about 1/8''
 Choose a pointy tipped, hard metal screw that is short [long enough to barely protrude from the template plate threads...1/16'' past or so], install...use a fast whack with a Med. Small hammer.

[Doug_H]

Thanks for the ideas!

I was going to make a drilling jig, but something that marks it like a nail set does makes sense too.

Any time you can just whack something with a hammer and get something accurate out of it, that's the process for me.  Nice and simple!

Doug

[David Barber]

We are still using our drilling fixtures, we just set up 6 drill presses ($89 each at Lowes) and pop out a box per minute. The drill guides are available at Mcmaster Carr and any basic metal shop can render the fixture. You can get drill guides that go into wood or plastic for making home fixtures as well. I might try that wood and "wack it" idea next time I need 5-10 units of something custom.

[ESPguitar]

That is pretty cool;D

What kind of box is that one David Barber? It's not a hammond(?)

Thanks,

Robin

[The Tone God]

A DIY drilling jig.

http://www.geocities.com/thetonegod/jig/jig.html

Andrew