Drill Press

The drill press is a stationary drilling machine that, thanks to its column-mounted body and vertical spindle, holds the bit on the same axis with every plunge. Its role in the pipe workshop can be summed up in one sentence: the bowl, smoke channel, and mortise bored into a briar block have to align to within a fraction of a millimeter, and a hand-held drill can't hold that alignment.

The machine's value in the workshop comes not from its power but from the angle between spindle and table never changing — that is, from holes drilled at the same setting repeating each other exactly.

Setup and Clamping the Block

Drilling doesn't start until the block is secured to the table. The usual way is a machine vise; it both grips the block firmly and slides finely across the table so the bit lands exactly where intended. For angled bowls or curved channels, the axis is changed by tilting the vise or the table; the bit still comes down vertically while the block meets it at the desired angle.

At what stage the block gets drilled is a matter of workshop preference. Some makers mount the raw block directly on the machine and drill first, shaping the form afterward around those axes; others rough out the shape first, then drill. This distinction is treated separately under shape first, then drill, and in the community it's seen not as a hard rule but as a difference in habit.