Long Shank Carbide Forstner Bits and JIG IT Drill Guide Use with a drill press or with a hand drill and our Exclusive JIG IT drill guide... Long Shank Carbide Forstner Bits and JIG IT Drill Guide

It's easy to drill a hole at a perfect 90 degree angle when you have a drill press, but for those of you who don't have a drill press, you can use a dill guide. Even for those woodworkers who do have a drill press, sometimes you just can't get your piece into proper position for whatever reason, a drill guide for a hand held drill may come in handy.

A drill guide fits over your hand held drill and lets you drill at a perfect right angle. When you are predrilling a screw for hardware, it is not usually necessary for it to be at a perfect angle, you can usually eyeball it. But if you need to drill a hole for inserting a dowel, or making a recess with a forstner bit, you need that hole to be as accurate as possible.

Below you can see two similar versions of a drill guide. The first, from Rockler Hardware is designed to be used with forstener bits and does it's job very well. It only drills at 90 degree angles. It costs about $15 dollars.

The second drill guide from Woodcraft is more expensive at about 45$ but much more versatile. As you can see, you can put many different sorts of bits in the chuck from 0-3/8", not only forstener bits. In addition, it is adjustable, so that you can drill at any angle between 45 and 90 degrees. As well, (although I have not used this feature), you can drill round stock by using the V guides it comes with.

Is the added features worth the extra cost? Well, if you don't have a drill press, definately. The other benefit is that these drill guides are portable. If you have glued up your project already and forgot to predrill the pieces on the drill press, and accuracy is very important, then a drill guide is worthwhile to have.