The True Position Drill Guide

Ok, a follow up on this jig that I bought a few weeks ago.
I finally got to use this jig in the lone boring capacity to bore shelf
pin holes. Unlike the Rockler jig that uses the spring loaded "Vix"
style drill bit this accessory add on to the main jig uses a standard
drill bit and or brad point bit, and I bought the 5mm vs. the 1/4"
version. The main jig is make to accurately position holes for
drawer/door pulls and knobs. 1/4" holes would be too big for pulls and
knobs. Anyway the two accessory line boring bars are 1/2" thick
aluminum bars with hardened steel drill hole inserts. Being 1/2" thick
pretty much insures that you are going to drill your holes perpendicular
to the surface. With the Rockler and similar jigs the guides are about
1/8" thick and do not insure a "perpendicular to the surface hole". The
drill bit can easily tilt. I might add that this was another reason I
preferred the Kreg jig over the Rockler style jig although this was
really never an issue, drilling a crooked hole, if you pay attention
when indexing the drill bit. The True Position line boring guides come
in a set of two bars and each allows drilling 12 holes, both attached to
the main jig allow up to 25 holes spaced 32mm apart. On my current
project I did not have enough room or need more than 12 holes in the
lower cabinet so I simply use one bar by itself. Using the Kreg jig in
the same situation I would have had to position the jig "3" times for 12
evenly spaced holes. The Kreg allows 6 holes to start then one hole is
used to index from the last hole and only allows drilling 5 holes from
that point at each placement. While the Kreg jig does allow you to buy
extra units to attach for a longer run, the attachment method uses the
same type plastic used in the jig and the paired jigs do not sit flat.
The paired jigs absolutely need to be clamped to the panel at their
union to flatten the jig assembly out. this is problematic because as
you remove the clamp the jig assembly wants to bow again and this binds
with the indexing pin if you are drilling more than 12 holes. Further
you have to flatten the jigs to be able to insert the indexing pin into
a previously drilled hole. It is a good idea but made with the wrong
type of material for ganging the jigs together.

So I drilled my 12 hole runs in 2 locations for a total of 8, 12 hole
runs. I simply sat the jig on top of a 3" wide board to index at the
starting location, drilled 12 holes and relocated to the new location.
Each set of 12 holes took me approximately 70 seconds from indexing the
jig and clamping it into position, so that I would hot have to hold it,
and drilled my holes in the already assembled cabinet about 32mm behind
the face frames. That was much much faster than had I been using the
Kreg jig.

As I mentioned I opted for the 5mm sized holes and these do look a bit
more elegant compared to the 1/4' holes that I have always used in the past.

Pricing for the True Position jig line boring "accessory", 2 bars, will
set you back about $110. The Kreg is approximately $35 for the single 6
hole plastic jig which works very well when used alone but truly a lot
of trouble and a waste of time when used singularly and you have several
hundred holes to drill. I drilled 96 holes total in 8 locations on an
assembled cabinet in about 10 minutes, first time out.

As a comparison of the True Position jig to the Kreg for the upper
cabinets to the project, I will be drilling approximately 36 shelving
positions. That will total 288 holes and the True Position jig used in
its full capacity, both bars attached to the main jig, will need to be
indexed 2 times for each run, the Kreg used by itself would require 7
separate indexing for each run.