that held up well. I go to Harbor Freight when I can't find what I want at a pawnshop.

Might have to buy 2 to get the job done, but we will see.

Your concern should be the drill bit and keeping it sharp. A hand drill can work and there are plenty of tutorials to make a jig for drilling straight.

Ain't happening. Try it sometime and see what you think about that.

No, I need accuracy between top and bottom rail, loaction wise (+/- .031&quot estimate I need 504 aluminum bronze tubes for my project. My 20 year old cedar rails are disintegrating, so that's the big profect in 2025...

How thick PT Pine ?
1x ?
2x ?

Trying to picture your railing 🤔
That’s a pretty large hole


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Boring 1-3/4" OD x 3/8"D holes top and bottom to locate aluminum tubes - 1-5/8 OD tubes x 36" Bronze anodize. I rep the Indian manufacturer stateside, so I should get a pretty fair price.

Gonna be a chore. Good luck


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But I was picturing your project and wondered about water collecting in bottom oversized hole … maybe want to add a few weep holes to bottom rail holes ?

🤔


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Not this year, but I see a lot of snow on this deack....and the faster it goes, the better for the deck. Good advice!

Are you using a Forstner bit that big to get flat bottoms in your holes? That will take some HP to twist a chip out after it starts losing it's edge. Might need frequent sharpenings, at least using a hone to keep the edge keen.

Been a thing for 45 years. I think +/- .385 ought to float the tubes, but keep them secure. It a few tubes are too long, may they indent the lumber a bit. Depnds on the 2x 4's....

but so is anything 1.75" diameter.
I'm trying to think of an alternative tool that could work, like a hole saw with the right diameter for the tubing to seat into the 2x4, but it might need to cut a thicker groove than the standard hole saw to work.

I could see using one 2x4 with holes through as a template to spot your locations on each regular 2x4, then you wouldn't have to lay them out individually. You'd still have a lot of holes to drill, but it could be repeatable and make your top and bottom sections more likely to match up. You'd need your depth of cut to be consistent, but that's why you'd use a drill press and not a hand drill.

I hope you can work out the kinks in your process to make it efficient. And find a reasonable priced drill press.

Both boards should locate OK, (assuming minimal warp and twist).

That's the plan. I think I need a drill stand to do bore the wholes in a relatively quick fashion.

"I could see using one 2x4 with holes through as a template to spot your locations on each regular 2x4,"

Absolutely, will need to overbore - m aybe a 1-7/8 bit to bore through....but this makes total sense and avoids having to do mark drill pints for every spindle on every each 2x4x8.

Great tip!

It's toxic IIRC. Be safe and stay healthy.

Cheers.

Tool feeds and speeds for a given material are important. Here's a chart for wood.
https://www.woodmagazine.com/woodworking-tips/techniques/drilling-boring/drill-press-speed-chart
Click the link to the PDF.

I needed to drill a shitload of holes into porcelain tile so...first thing I did was to buy a Harbor Freight floor-standing press. It lasted one night and twenty holes. When I got up in the morning to drill some more holes I tried turning it on and...it wouldn't go on. I pulled off the switch and ohmed it out, and the switch itself was broken. I made some jumpers to connect the two wires coming off the switch, turned it on and it ran fine. I first thought to myself, "I can go to Home Depot, buy a switch and an electrical box, and install a new switch on this thing that'll work fine." Then I thought to myself, "exactly why are you planning to field-modify a tool that's less than 24 hours old?" It went back to Harbor Freight.

What I wound up with is a Grizzly Industrial "Shop Fox" brand oscillating bench-mount 3/4-horse drill press. I made a neat little stand with wheels for it. Works great and is plenty (ful)filling. The "oscillating" thing is for sanding - they give you a little kit with it that contains three rubber drums in different sizes, plus a few sanding sleeves, and it becomes a pretty decent edge sander. The only issue I have with the sanding kit is, for some reason, the drums don't fit the sanding sleeves Grizzly sells. Maybe I got a bad set. I don't think I'd get the oscillating model anymore; I paid under $400 for it in 2020 and it's nearly $700 now. The thing I like best about Grizzly drill presses is that there's a screw in the chuck shaft that lets you attach it to the quill a lot more securely than just jamming a Jacobs taper into its hole. They also give you a chuck key with a spring-loaded pin in it to force the key out of the chuck after you've finished tightening a drill bit, which keeps you from turning the DP on with the key still in the chuck. I bought mine from the Grizzly store in Bellingham, WA, but they will ship.