Drilling in the Lathe

When it comes to woodturning, ironically, drilling is actually a common task. You might need to drill the hole that will accept a new tool in a freshly turned handle, or you might need to drill three or four evenly spaced and correctly angled holes in the seat of a stool to accept the legs that you’ve turned.

Then there’s the process(es) of actually doing the drilling in your lathe. In this article, I’ll cover those methods, the types of drill bits that work best for different tasks, plus some shop-made jigs to make things easier.

Drilling in Tail-, Headstocks

What most people think of as “drilling in a lathe” is when the work is mounted on a faceplate or in a chuck, being drilled by a drill mounted in the tailstock. As the work revolves on the headstock spindle, turning the tailstock handwheel advances the drill to the required depth — which is indicated