What should the final size be on the holes? Mine seem a little tight after getting started and thought about getting a reamer to get to a specific dimension
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I would say as tight as you can get them and still like how easy tooling goes in and out of them. I take it you used a annular cutter. Quality of the cutter might make all the difference.
Is your screen name short for northeast welder, or Nebraska welder?
Nebraska
I bet you could sneak up on a fit you like pretty quickly with a piece of dowel mounted in a hand drill, and wrapped with emery cloth. Cheaper and less fragile than a reamer, and you don’t actually care about the absolute final dimension as much as the class of fit. You’re looking for a transitional fit, since a medium fit is unacceptable (bearing surface is short so it’d have noticeable wobble) and an interference fit would be unusable.
Gives you a starting point for how much clearance you want between the pin size and the hole size to not have to use a big hammer and a drift punch under the table to get your fixtures out.
I bet if you mike the pins on the blocks, you’ll want to account for tolerance in the pin size too if you really want it to be perfect. Time spent up front on QC of your setup is going to pay off for many years to come though… Or possibly I’ve been thinking too much about the DIY table thing lately.
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The final hole size should be .750. The tooling is undersized to gain the clearance needed for the fixtures to work.
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So I used the Fireball 3/4” hole jig recently to drill my 1/2” table-top. I was trying to figure that out also. After drilling all the holes with a quality 3/4” annular cutter & mag-drill, the two-pin Fireball blocks were fitting very tight. Hard to get in and out. I used a micrometer to measure the used & a new annular cutter & both measured .74”! The fireball block pins also measured .74. I ordered a 3/4” reamer & it measures exactly .75 or 3/4”. I used an air drill with the reamer to ream the holes to a true 3/4”. Also, after chamfering the top holes with a quality 6-flute chamfer, I flipped the top over to address the hole bottoms. These were very sharp and left a little metal from when the plugs were drilled out. I also slightly chamfered those to clean them up. Top was chamfered using mag drill with an 82 degree Weldon shank chamfer bit. Underside, I used a regular 6-flute bit in an air drill. An air-drill is way easier to control & doesn’t spin out of your hands if it catches. It just stops. I’ve broke my hand & my thumb that way! FYI. The Fireball blocks now slide in and out with ease and there is 10/1000th of an inch clearance between the pins & holes. I think this will work fine. Oh, I also bought a 6-pack of chuckable 3/4” wire brushes off Amazon to polish-up the holes a bit. Also, I used the fireball scraper to scrape the top and bottom of table in four directions over the holes to clean-up very thin metal lap-over from the chamfering. Hope this helps.
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Looks really nice!
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Looks to me like you did a thorough job, nice work! Can you give the guys who are thinking about the same thing a price list for what you bought and how long it took you to complete the whole project (and how many holes)?
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Thanks! It was obviously a lot of work. I like to have a project I can peck-away at. There are 448 holes. Top is 1/2” thick and about 6’x3’. I bought a Hogan 904S mag drill for the job & for future projects. That was the biggest expense. $1600 with case & assesories. There are definitely cheaper options for a mag. Going off my shady memory, the 3/4” annular cutter & sold separately pilot was probably 50 or 60 bucks. Reamer, maybe $40. The six flute, Welden chamfer might have been about $50. 3/4 brushes, maybe $20. I used about 2 1/2 gallons of WD40 as cutting oil in a squirt bottle. Fireball Jason’s suggestion it and it worked great! Harbor Freight sells it. $30 a gallon I think. A few paper plastic disposable tarps, maybe $10 a piece. This is an oily job, so a little pre-planning is in order. I used a horse hair brush & a five gallon bucket to manage the steel shavings. I used the Fireball drill jig kit to do the project. I would not do all this work without the jig. That was $260 if I recall, but is a nice piece of kit.
It adds up for sure. I just really enjoy the experience & pride of building my own projects. Plus, there is the ability to customize to my needs. When done, the table will have 2 or three slide outs for bigger projects, such as gates. A slide out tray to catch spatter & objects that fall thru the holes. Also, onboard storage for Fireball clamps and squares, blocks, ex. underneath. Torch holsters, and such. The creativity is fun.
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Oh, I’m guessing I’m into the hole project ( see what I did there) about 90 hours. I did it over a couple months a couple 2-3 hours at a pop.
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Thanks Man!
Did you ever check to see how the Diagonals on the holes measure? I am going to be doing a 5x8 this summer sometime and just trying to go a idea of how close they come out using the guide.
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I didn’t check diagonal. Not sure why that would be necessary. I did check for square. Which, by default should mean the diagonals are true as well. The drilling template is very nice & precise.
Measuring the diagonals is the best way to check for square
I’ve been waiting 8 months for the drill guide to come in stock. I have all the tools and materials. Getting a little frustrating.
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Hey @Redforgefa - I understand how frustrating it can be when the item you want is out of stock. We anticipate to be back in stock mid to late June. We aren’t taking any preorders, however we can make an exception. Please reach out to our CS team at contact@firebaclltool.com and they will assist in providing an invoice.
Thank you, 
FB CS Team
I’m not far from starting mine! what brand Annular cutter did you buy? and did one cutter cut all your holes? Great tip on the HF WD-40!
I’m pretty sure I found the
HSS Dewalt annular cutter on Amazon. Be aware, you have to buy the correct pilot separately. I bought two annular cutters, but only used one. WD40 in a spray bottle.
One hand on the mag drill handle, another holding the spray bottle. I sprayer around the hole before I started drilling, and while drilling. If I saw any smoke, I shot it again. I went thru about 2 gallons of WD40. I’m honestly not sure if I was using too much, but just know from experience that too much heat will ruin a bit or blade so I was liberal with the coolant. It’s a messy job so I used the
9x12 paper/plastic throw-away tarps (also Amazon), and put them all around & under the table top. I used a five gallon bucket and a hand brush to manage the shavings after each cut.