What are "drill jigs" and why are they used?

[Nelson]

What are drill jigs and how are they used to drill holes repetitively in parts?

What machines can these jigs be used on, and how do you make one?



Nelson

 

[krh0003]

They are also used during assembly process'. We use them at my work all over the place, but they are used in conjunction with either a SF bushing and drilled by hand, or we use positive feed drill motors that have an integral bushing. To give a basic example: say you have two pieces of sheetmetal that need to be fastened to a frame, you would locate them into position, then clamp your drill jig to your material stack up, you would then drill your holes through the jig. This way you are drilling the holes at the same location for every assembly.

 

[Tony Wells]

I don't think they are nearly so common now as a few years ago. Primarily, IMO, they allowed semi-skilled labor to produce acceptable parts more readily. You could be pretty sure the hole locations were right even if a trainee on a drill press did them. Some are build like hinged boxes where a forging or casting is set inside resting on predetermined tooling points or datum points to locate each part the same. The part is clamped down and the box lid is closed and pinned. In this case, holes on all 6 side of a part can be made. Typically, hardened bushings are pressed into place, and slip bushings are inserted into them. This allows for several sized drils to be put in the same location. Most of the time when this type of drill jig/fixture is used, it's on a multi-spindle drill press, or a turret drill like a Burgmaster.

I've been stuck for a few days running this type of operation. It was before NC/CNC became more affordable

 

[Bobby Bailey]

We use to use drill jigs when drilling actions for scope bases and barrels for sights. But now we almost always do them on the mill using the DRO
Bobby

 

[Weldfab]

Back in the 70's I worked for a plastic manufacturing company that made outdoor biffy's. We used to drop down a jig where we would drill out the necessary holes so they could be assembled with pop rivets. Nothing high tech about it but very functional. We also used routers with 3" saw blades for trimming excess
material from other products. Very dangerous! Hope they quit that practice.

 

[chief]

what is the best acid to clean metal with ?

 

[chief]

Thank you.