One of our customers came up with this idea . Mount to your drill press table , line the bit to the hole in the cork ring , and drill away , pull the handle back , put in another ring and drill . Ring after ring , they will all be the same . A neat little tool and a time saver. It can be seen on our website , click on new products ,and then on cork ring clamp.

Robert

I think I know where he got the idea. It was on the cover of a Rodmaker Magazine way back in 1997 or 1998. I think the plans to make it were in the volume 1 #4 issue or so.

Not a bid deal. I'm glad somebody is using the plans to make these commercially. Andy Dear offered them for a time back around 2000 or so, but don't think he's still making them.

The plans were in the Volume 1 #4 issue and the clamp was featured on the cover of the Volume 1 #3 issue way back in 1998. I came up with the idea back in the mid 1980's. The clamp is a real time saver and you can bore/drill cork rings without ever shutting off the drill. I think I can do about 200 per hour using the clamp. And it offers "hands-off" drilling of the rings. Just be careful not to let your knuckles or fingers bump the spinning drill bit when removing or dropping in another ring. I use a pair of large commercial tweezers to load and unload the clamp.

If you bore many cork rings, you'll find it a real time saver.

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I made one from the RM article some time ago, with the base a little longer for clamping, and love it [www.rodbuilding.org]

I actually had my brother (a woodworker) build me one of these clamps. Here's something I do with the clamp; besides using it for cork (which I drill out with forstner bits) I also use it to drill out 5" pieces of acrylic blanks that I then glue on a mandrel to turn reel seats. The clamp keeps the acrylic from turning, and I can get a straight hole by marking the center of each end, and drilling from both ends with a forstner bit. If you build one of these clamps, make the "v" walls a little higher, and they will lend even more stability to turning four-sided acrylics.