On Mar 4, 3:45 pm, "Andy" wrote:
On Mar 4, 3:13 pm, wrote:

I am looking for a good way to make consistently spaced holes on
drill press. I need to make about 20 holes 1/2 inch apart in a
straight line. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

I'm curious to see what shortcuts other people use, but I'll describe
what I'd do.
The straight line part is easy - set up a fence or clamp a board to
your DP table so the bit hits your workpiece where you want it to for
the first hole.
For the spacing, I'd use a ruler against the top of the workpiece and
mark every 1/2". Then line up that mark with a corresponding mark on
your "fence", and drill away. Or, if you have a thick ruler or if you
clamped a ruler to your "fence" board, you could just make one line on
your workpiece, and align that with the 1/2" marks on the ruler/fence.
Let me know if my description isn't clear...
Andy

If the holes go all the way through you can drill your first hole,
move the piece 1/2" over and drill down through the first hole into
the table with a hand drill. Grab a piece of appropriately sized
dowel and push it through the hole in the workpiece into the hole in
the table, thus locking the piece in place (against a fence) 1/2" over
from where you started. Now drill your second hole with the drill
press and then slide it over and drop your dowel through that hole,
into the hole in the table.

Or you could mill up 19 pieces of short 1/2" material to use as
spacers against the fence and a stop at the end, removing one each
time you drill a hole.

JP