I made the balustrade for my new house out of wood and metal. The handrail is aluminum tubing while the turned balusters are red oak. The tapered ends of each baluster fit into holes in the underside of the tubing, and therein lies the challenge. How do I make sure the holes in the tubing all end up in a straight line?
I used a 1/2-in. hole saw mounted in my drill press to cut the holes. To cradle the tubing, I cut a V-notch in a length of 2x to serve as a carriage. Then I tilted the table of my drill press to the required 38° angle and clamped the carriage to it. Near the end of the tubing, I drilled a couple of 1/4-in. holes for an alignment rod. As shown in the drawing, the rod bears on a couple of blocks. Nestled in this manner, the tubing can’t rotate, and my holes end up straight and true.
Neil W. Momb, Issaquah, WA
