Product Reviews

Product Review – Seyco Scroller’s Drill

seyco-plunge-drill-leadScroller’s Drill

By Bob Duncan

You can easily drill blade-entry holes in large fretwork blanks with the new Scroller’s Drill by Seyco.

The typical throat depth on a drill press can limit the size of your fretwork project because it makes it difficult to drill blade-entry holes in the center of the design. While you can use a hand-held drill to access these hard-to-reach areas, drilling holes perfectly square to the blank using a hand-held drill is challenging. If the blade-entry holes are not drilled squarely in the blank, it creates problems when cutting the design, which are compounded when stack cutting.

The Scroller’s Drill solves the problem of limited throat depth. Instead of moving the work around on your drill press, simply move the Scroller’s Drill around on your blank. The plastic base sits on top of the workpiece and the mini electric drill passes through the base into the workpiece. This allows you to drill perpendicular blade-entry holes anywhere on the blank.

The drill accepts bits up to 532” (4mm) in diameter, but works best with smaller bits. When drilling 1/8″ (3mm)-diameter holes in 11/2″ (38mm)-thick hard maple, the drill bogged down and stopped by the time I had drilled down 1/4″ (6mm). However, the same bit went through a 1/4″ (6mm)-thick blank with no trouble.

The drill is ideal for drilling tiny holes in fretwork. I chucked a #61 drill bit into the drill and drilled ten holes through a stack of two 1/8″ (3mm)-thick Baltic birch plywood blanks in about ten seconds. The #61 drill bit is commonly used when cutting with #3 blades. There were no problems with the drill bogging down using the smaller drill bit and thinner stock.

An integrated thumb screw allows you to change the drilling angle to drill angled holes for bowls or baskets. The plastic base slides across your blank without scratching the surface, but stays in place after you position it above the fret.

You can control the depth of the holes by how far you insert the drill bit into the chuck, but I would like to see a mechanical depth stop. It’s easy to snap small bits if you drill too deep into the bench or backing board under the blank. I’d prefer to have a depth stop that prevents me from drilling too far beyond the thickness of the blank.

The Seyco Scroller’s Drill is compact and portable, and may be the only drilling tool a fretwork artist with limited shop space needs. The Scroller’s Drill is not intended to replace a full-size drill press, but it does a great job of drilling blade-entry holes in fretwork of any size.

The Scroller’s Drill is available for $109, free shipping. Contact Seyco at 800-462-3353 or visit their website
at www.seyco.com.