I'll buy your jig when you're done....
It's really nothing special. Just some scrap wood, a hinge, two little angle brackets I had laying around, and a bike clamp. I drilled a hole in a board about the same diameter as a chip with a hole saw and then cut it in half to make the hinged jig.
A few notes on the jig that might not be noticeable from the video:
- The near side of the jig is bolted to the plywood base, and the far side just swings free on the hinge. It wanted to rock upwards when I tightened the clamp, so I screwed those other blocks on top of it to keep it from lifting but still let it slide.
- The bike clamp is there just to squeeze the jig together and keep the chip from spinning. A few times I've forgotten to tighten it though, and the chip still stayed put.
- See the black tape sticking out from under the near side of the jig pieces? I put down hockey grip tape on the base to help grab the chip and prevent spinning. It worked well.
- I tried to level the drill press platform as best I could, but it still wasn't perfectly perpendicular to the bit, so I was getting holes that were slightly shallower on one side. I added a little piece of the grip tape under the chip on the low side, and that flattened it out perfectly.
- I experimented with different speeds on the drill press and settled on the lowest speed. It seems to generate less runout and keeps the holes tighter.
- The depth stop on this drill press sucks because it's on one side and makes the bit tip to one side when it hits the stop, messing up the hole. I just eyeball the depth of every mill. When the hot stamp is gone that's about perfect for these chips.
- In the video I go slow with light pressure, and the bit tends to skip a little bit like this, but it still works fine. If I make a quick plunge with medium pressure it goes smoother, but then the clay comes out in one long ribbon, spins around, and totally obscures my view of the hot stamp, so it's hard to see when I've gone deep enough.
- Edit: another thing you can't see is that I drilled a recess in the base at the front edge of the chip so that I could slide my thumb under the chip and pry it up.
