Customizable Drill Press Fence

prusaprinters

<p>Fence initially created for Harbor Freight's Central Machinery 5-speed drill press.</p><p>A drill press fence is a great way to accurately drill many holes at the exact same distance from an edge in a repeatable way! It can also be used to brace pieces for drum sanding to a consistent thickness, if you choose to abuse your drill press in the way that I do (not recommended if you want to keep a good press accurate).&nbsp;</p><p>Plus:</p><ul><li>Inset faces add strength and provide a clamping surface that clamps won't slip out of.</li><li>Customizable for any bed size, bolt size, or for additional strength.</li><li>Sharp edges near the work for accuracy, chamfered edges near the human for comfort.</li></ul><p>If you have a high-leverage use case for a drill press fence - long lumber or heavy pieces - you should probably not trust a plastic piece for this function. But this is plenty strong for hand use in PETG, with extra perimeters and layers.</p><p>Printed in generic black PETG at 0.2mm layer height, with increased top/bottom layers, increased perimeters, and 25% infill. (This may not be enough - further testing will tell.) Print settings included on the .3mf file - just set only one of the objects to print.</p><p>PLA is not recommended - the tendency to shatter rather than deform under impact is NOT what you want to encounter when something catches your workpiece and slams it into the fence. Use clamps and be careful too!</p><p>Included STLs are at 200mm and 155mm lengths, with 104mm bolt holes - these fit my Harbor Freight Central Machinery benchtop drill press. I chose 40mm for both height and depth, that fits my needs. It's secured with some large 5/16" bolts that fit in the 8mm bolt holes.</p><p>To customize:&nbsp;</p><ol><li>Download the .scad and square_texture.png files from this project, and OpenSCAD: <a href="https://openscad.org/index.html">https://openscad.org/index.html</a></li><li>Measure (twice!) your bolt centerpoint distance, bolt head and shaft sizes, and use scrap or cardboard to figure out the height and base width of your fence.</li><li>Choose an overall width at least 2cm greater than your bolt distance, but probably not too much wider than your drill press bed.</li><li>Modify the 13 named variables at the top of the file, and preview for a visual estimate.&nbsp;</li><li>Adjust the number of inset faces so they are wider than the surface of your small clamps if you want.</li><li>Render, and Export as STL - Then slice and print!</li></ol>