Pen Press/Drilling Jig

Drill and assemble your pens perfectly with flush fittings and a smoothly-operating mechanism! This dual-purpose jig takes care of both prep work and assembly. It holds your blank firmly in position for drilling, creating a precise, perfectly centered hole the entire length of the pen. Later, it smoothly presses your parts together without any bowing or misalignment. Notched jaws automatically center the blank for drilling, while two countersunk holes center the parts during assembly. Large clamping wheel provides slow, controlled pressure so you’ll never crack a casing again.

After all the careful work of turning, the worst possible thing is to have something go wrong during assembly. The Pen Press/Drilling Jig prevents this from happening in two ways. It ensures a straight hole to accept your mechanism without binding, and it pushes everything together with steady, parallel clamping action. The result is a smooth operating pen, every time. Includes 3 replaceable sacrificial wood blanks for the exit hole in drilling operations. Extruded aluminum base provides space for a shop made drawer. Feet are pre-drilled for mounting to an auxiliary base. Cast aluminum jaws are notched for vertical drilling and countersunk for horizontal pen pressing. Self-centering jaws allow for repeatable drilling of various pen blank sizes. Centered countersink in the jaws allows precise pen pressing without bowing and misalignment. Clamping wheel provides slow, controlled pressure when pressing your pen or clamping your pen blank.

Customer Reviews and Photos for: Pen Press/Drilling Jig Average Rating: (3.5) (17 customer reviews) Add your review...

1) Submitted by Ken Salo, from Champlin, MN on 5/3/2009 Customer Rating: This works great to drill blanks, but it does not do well as a pen press. We bought an arbor press that does the job with a lot less effort (be careful, however, to watch very closely--the one ton press can put too much pressure on the pen piece and it will crack.). We also had a problem with ball bearings and set screws coming off. Rockler has good quality items and this is a bit disappointing.

2) Submitted by Randy Mitchell, from Sun Prairie, WI on 3/10/2009 Customer Rating: Very well built and easy to use. Jaws line up spot on and hold tightly. I love that it opens wider than 2" so larger pieces can be used. I wouldn't use it as a pen press because the threads on the crank are a bit fine, but I didn't buy it for that anyway. I highly recommend this.

3) Submitted by Jeff Levings, from Caledonia, OH on 2/21/2009 Customer Rating: I bought this product to save money from buying 2 pieces of equipment. As of right now I am pretty happy with it. I drill my pen blanks all at one time then remove the toll and put on my bench. Is a little tight trying to get fingers in between jaws when pressing smaller pieces.

4) Submitted by Robert Hollibaugh , from Orofino, ID on 2/13/2009 Customer Rating: I have just recently started making pens and pencils and have been using home made decices for assembly this is my first commercial press. l like the press and clamp. The only complaint I have is it is quite slow on the assembly side. I have tried spraying the threads with silicone and they are still hard to turn and slow to operate hopefully they will wear in, other than that I am well pleased

5) Submitted by Mark Lessinger, from Brocton, NY on 1/1/2009 Customer Rating: A bit clumsy to open and close the jaws when constructing and building a pen. Very hard to keep the jaws level and I have split a pen because I was unaware that the jaws were not level with each other.

6) Submitted by Mike McM, from Houston, TX on 12/28/2008 Customer Rating: General construction quality is very good, pretty robust design. The recessed pockets for using as a pen press can be a little deep, but not a show stopper for me. This is a HUGE improvement over the machinist vise I was using for drilling, and the hand clamp I was using for assembly. Better accuracy in drilling and better control in assembly, and both in a single tool.

7) Submitted by Joe Pack, from New London, OH on 12/17/2008 Customer Rating: Generally, a useful product. I have used it to drill well over 500 blanks for bottle stoppers, keychains, kaleidoscopes, pens, etc. Overall, this jig has saved me time and effort over the hand clamp method, but it does have some areas that could use improvement. I did have a problem with the set-screws that hold the clamps to the rails vibrating loose and allowing the ball bearing inside the hole to fall out. Fortunately, I found the ball bearing and the set screw before I vacuumed the shavings off the table. I checked and found that three of the four set-screws were loose to the point of almost falling out also. A little trial and error to find the 'sweet spot' for the set-screw tension, then a drop of nail polish on the threads, and all is well. I also found loose screws/nuts all through this jig. A thorough inspection for loose hardware is strongly suggested before using this product. I mentioned this to the manager where I bought the jig and he said that he had had a few other complaints about the same thing. So, quality control must be an issue. Just check all parts that could possibly be loose before you use it. As with another post here, the extension handle on the wheel repeatedly comes loose. I should replace the nut with a nylon lock type to see if this stops the problem. The V-notches in the jaws allow for accurate, repeatable placement of blocks, but, because the notches are smooth, they do not grip blanks well. Drilling through is not a problem, but when backing the drill bit out of the hole, the blank often slides up. The jaws of the vise have to be extremely tight to prevent this, or you have to hold down on the blank with a finger to prevent the blank from sliding out with the drill bit. Some sort of "teeth" on the edges of the V-groove would prevent this. The great amount of pressure required to keep a blank from slipping puts a lot of stress on the threaded rod assembly, particularly the hold-down for the threaded rod. The screws that hold this in place come loose and require frequent attention. Especially when drilling large quantities of blanks at one time, the threads plug up easily. Frequent cleaning of threads is necessary. You won't notice if you are drilling just a couple, but if you are drilling 100 at a time, tensioning the vice gets harder and harder, sticking frequently. Just keep it clean. The jig needs to be mounted to a plywood base in order to use it effectively. The flanges on the jig base are too narrow to allow good purchase for clamping directly to a drill press table. If you are not buying it on a good sale, look at other jigs for not much more money. If you are doing more production work (50-100 at a time) than hobby work (1-10 at a time), consider more sturdy, more stable jigs.

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