Kanzawa drill guide support K-801

In 1983 my wife and I moved to a new place here in San Diego, and I built floor-to-ceiling bookcases. They were shelves that were bolted to 2x2s, and I drilled almost 600 holes into the 2x2s and shelf supports. To do so I purchased a drill guide from Portalign Tool Company, which was here in San Diego, although I got the drill guide in a hardware store that is long since out of business. So is the Portalign Tool Company.I’ve attached two photographs of their old drill guide. The one big drawback with this drill guide is the chuck arrangement. In order to use it, you had to remove the chuck from your drill (they provided directions for how to do so), then reattach it below the sliding cross bar on the drill guide. You then attached your drill above the sliding cross bar and were in business. Later on, when you wanted to use that drill for something else, you had to disassemble your drill guide and reassemble your drill. It was a tedious process that I endured for the first few years because of the economics of it. But a few years later I got another drill and then set up one on the drill guide where it has been ever since.Since 1992 I have been actively remodeling our home, room-by-room. The current project is new kitchen cabinets. I have long since acquired a drill press, but that old drill guide is often called into use because there are times when a drill press just won’t get the job done. If you decide to drill into the center of a very large piece, you’ll need a drill guide. And whenever I install drawer knobs or pulls on drawer fronts, I use that drill guide.It has been some 36 years since I made that purchase, and it still works like a champ. But some years back when I learned that Portalign was no longer in business, I worried that I might one day break my drill guide and need a replacement. I tried two other drill guides with that in mind and thought both of them were worthless. Then I saw the Kanzawa drill guide.As you can see from the photos I posted, the Kanzawa is almost exactly the same thing with one notable exception. It already has a chuck mounted below the sliding cross bar. All you have to do is insert a bit and insert whatever drill you wish to use. Other than that it is the same drill guide as the Portalign. But now it works much easier.I just received mine yesterday and drilled a few holes to see how well it works. Really, just like the old one I’ve had for so many years. But without the deficit of having to wrestle one’s chuck on and off one’s drill. As for the durability and all, I swear it’s made exactly the same as the one that has served me some 36 years.I do know that this drill guide is more expensive than others, but it just brings me back to an old saying about woodworking tools: I can’t tell you which tools I paid too much money for, but I can tell you which ones I didn’t pay enough for. This drill guide will last, and it will always drill holes right on the money, same as my faithful Portalign. Works for me.

I have owned a few drill guides and after my plastic one broke in the middle of a project I decided to buy a metal drill guid with no angle adjustment. I always had major wobble from the angle adjustment features. This drill guide is solid with a nice precision slide. The drill chuck has no wobble or play and performs flawlessly. Well worth the added expense as I don’t expect this drill guide to break ever based on the all metal construction.

There's plenty of other drill guides, all cheaper than this one, available on Amazon. I myself have owned other popular brands (milescraft? and one other) only to end up throwing them out due to frustration. The main issue I see with the __other__ models is their lack of stability, mainly, the guide racks, twists and generally contorts itself while in use making its value as a drill guide less than ideal--waaay less than ideal. Poor design, over featured, plastic key components, you name it, they have it.Part of the reason this model is so stable is that it plunges only straight down so there's no side-to-side or twisting motion possible. Supposedly, the two support rods can be adjusted past the base and used in an ad-hoc way to drill at an angle (per the box photo), I wouldn't recommend it though as it's going to be difficult to get the correct angle. There's stops on both the guides so the plunge depth can be set and the thingamajig to tighten the bit to the chuck is chained to the gizmo so it doesn't get lost. Plunge action is smooth and the assembly is quite stable even when a drill is attached to the top. Except for the friction pads on the bottom, construction is all-metal. There's for screw holes in the base so you can screw the assembly into a jig of sorts making it possible to clamp down the whole contraption for even more stability. The chuck says it can accommodate 1.5-10mm bits. Made in Japan.Kanzawa sells another model, at an even higher price, that can do angles. There's also models that have longer support rods to accommodate longer drill bits, also for some additional cost.One star docked for the significantly higher price and the possibility of rust in the rods and chuck. Don't be fooled by my four star rating though since I would have given the others I've owned only a single star. Mine shipped directly from Japan and arrived in quick order.