Homemade Vertical Drill Press Clamp

Perfect for drilling pen blanks or any small pieces vertically in your drill press, easy to build and a must have drill press jig. I always suggest watching the build video so that you have a better understanding of the project. For this project I needed one 3/4 of an inch board, 3 inches wide by 3 feet long. Going through my scraps I found a board I could use for this project, and starting with my table saw by ripped the board down to the width I needed. With my now 3 inch wide board, I needed to cut it to the right length. For this project I needed two pieces that measure 16 inches long, to achieve this I used my miter saw.

Next I needed to create a v-groove in both piece, this groove will run across the with of both pieces on one side only. I created this groove 7 inches from one end using a v-groove bit in my router table. With the groove completed and both pieces held together they should create channel as shown. With my v-groove created I clamped my two boards together in the vise making sure the v-groove was lined up in both pieces, and then I attached a butt hinge at one end. I now have a vertical clamping jig, perfect for things like pen blanks, dowels, small knobs, anything I need to safely hold in a vertical situation at my drill press. For example with a pen blank, I just insert the blank into the grove then with my hand apply squeezing pressure to the end of the jig with out the hinge.