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Drill help

Like a woman has appliances in the house, a man has help during drilling. ( yes, emancipation has not reached me yet.)

In almost every building plan of a jerkbait or crankbait it says that it's very important to drill the screw eyes in the middle of the lure. Piece of cake, you think. But when you look at the results, you will see that they are not always that good. Especially when the corners are rounded off it's very difficult to see if the hole is exactly in the middle. To put an end to all these problems, you simple build yourself a drill help.

The drill help is just a small board of wood. The easiest way is to use the same wood as the wood you are building your lures off. Then you have the exact same thickness.

Building the drill help.

Take a piece of wood that has the desired thickness. Attach a 4 mm thick piece of triplex to both sides. The help looks like an H. Now comes the important part, drilling the hole. Use a pencil to draw a point in the exact middle of the wood. Drill the desired hole through the wood at the point. And the drill help is ready. Well, not quite, you still have to test it. In order to do so, put the drill help over a piece of wood, in a way that the triplex lies over the wood. Drill the hole. Turn the help around and drill again. There are two options:

  1. The hole is oval. You didn't drill it in the exact middle. The drill help is no good. Start over again.
  2. The hole is perfectly round. The drill help is ready.




With the drill help you created, you can easily drill the holes you need in the jerkbaits and crankbaits you are building. Naturally you can build a drill help for a lot of diameters and for all sorts of board. Lots of success.

Klaas-Jan Zuidema.

Note: When you turn the drill help, during the testing, you should turn it, so that right becomes left. And not top becomes bottom. Seems logical, but I mention it anyway.