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Being the perfectionist that I am, even the slightest misalignment of the handles, either horizontally or vertically would have been completely unacceptable to me. Note that when using the tool on drawers you completely remove one of the slides from the tool. Accordingly, I searched the internet for a tool that I felt would be capable of precisely aligning the holes for my handles. The hole spacing in the tool is also adjustable so you can match the screw hole spacing in your handles. This procedure allowed me to align all of my remaining handles exactly with the top handle.
Of the relatively few that appeared to be available, this one proved to be the best I was able to find.Conceptually, the tool is simple to understand and use. Once set for a given style door (or drawer) you simply move the tool from one door/drawer to another, hold it firmly in place and drill your holes through the tool using the holes as a drill guide, making sure you hold your drill straight and level. If the play is very minute, you may just want to do each drawer as just described and the results will probably be acceptable, since the drawers will shift a little from side to side during use anyway. Bear in mind that once you drill your holes, if they are not in perfect alignment, you will either have to live with a sloppy job that will attract everyone's attention, or you will need to replace the door/drawer at considerable cost and delay. Just be careful you do not squeeze the clamp so hard that you mar you door, just enough pressure to keep the tool from changing position if you relax your grip a little bit. I might add that when I first started I attempted to make a home made wooden jig to line up and drill the holes.
This takes a little patients and fiddling around with the Allen set screws that adjust the slides, but it is worth the effort to do this right. On drawers however, because of there width, you must measure to find the horizontal center of the drawer, then center the tool on that line and set the one slide for the vertical location where you want your handles to install on the drawers. I found this tool to do what it is advertised to do, and it does it well.I am a fanatic for making everything straight, level, and plumb. The Align-Rite DG-101 Drill Guide is a very well made, high quality tool. I guess the best information I can give to help someone who is contemplating purchasing this tool is to explain how I used it to get excellent results. Once set, it can be used to do a right hand or left hand door by simply rotating it 180 degrees, with no further adjustments.Because holding the tool against the door and trying to hold the drill level and straight all at the same time can be a little bit of a challenge, I used a small plastic squeeze clamp to stabilize the tool on the door in addition to holding it with my hand. Then I centered all of the drawers in the center of their horizontal play. You can set it for a different location if you choose.Because drawers have a little side to side play in their positions, they present a little more of a challenge to the horizontal alignment when you have multiple drawers one above another.
I choose to mount my drawer handles in the vertical center of the drawers. There was no way I was able to make it precise enough and the wooden holes quickly enlarged so they no longer guided the drill bit precisely. You simply adjust the slides such that when placed against the edge and bottom (or top) of the door the holes in the tool are positioned exactly where you want to drill them for your handles. My motto is "No body can see how fast I did it; they can only see how well I did it." This tool allowed me to honor my motto.
Not because of a short coming in the tool itself, but because on the doors you are holding the tool against the corner of a door which gives you both vertical and horizontal alignment simultaneously. Setting it is straight forward and relatively easy to do. I took an extra step however; remember the curse of the perfectionist.I did the first drawer as described above. This is where you want to be very precise.
Using this technique, I went from door to door and drilled all my holes, which were in perfect horizontal and vertical alignment when I finished. I did this for each successive drawer; accordingly, all my left hand holes (or right hand holes if you so choose) were now in perfect vertical alignment.Then with the tool adjusted to place my handle holes at the vertical center of the next drawer (this distance needs to be reset for each drawer that is a different height) I then "peeked" through the appropriate drill hole in the tool that I intended to use for my handle and aligned that hole so that it was centered exactly over the vertical plumb line. It is not magic however; you need to take your time to carefully set it very precisely. I used a piece of masking tape on each drawer where I intended to draw the mark so I wouldn't make marks on my actual drawers. After I drilled the holes in the top drawer, with all the drawers still set to center of play, I used a level to set a plumb (vertical) line through the center of one of the holes I just drilled in the top drawer (left or right, doesn't matter) and marked that vertical line on each drawer below the top drawer. The money spent on the Align-Rite DG 101 was incredibly well spent.One final comment: while the above description applies to handles with two mounting holes, the same basic procedure will work if you are using knobs instead of handles, with the obvious modification relative to number of holes.I hope this review provides enough guidance to others that they may make an informed choice regarding whether this is a tool that will help them with there project and provide a little help in the practical use of it. Additionally, it had no adjustability to accommodate different handle locations. The drawers are harder to do than the doors.
They can then judge for themselves whether they think this tool will suit their needs.First, I was installing thirty-two handles on $12,000 worth of new kitchen cabinets and could not afford to mess them up with a sloppy job of mounting the handles. On test pieces I quickly realized that this was a step in the wrong direction. The holes in the guide are case hardened and replaceable so that your drill bit does not enlarge the holes over time. If all your doors are the same style and you want the handles in the same location on all your doors that is basically the whole procedure for the doors. Once again, I used the plastic clamp to stabilize the tool in position.When I was done, I had a perfect job with all 32 handles perfectly aligned. Good luck with your project
This works pretty well. The screws that hold the adjustable parts of this jig hold pretty well, but do strip out over time. I have lost these things before they have failed, but I could see it coming. The only thing is that if you are drilling a whole kitchen, it sometimes is too small for the bigger drawers, and I wish it was self centering on drawer fronts.
Okay -- so I'm no pro at kitchen installs, but I have done a couple. I had to do about 10 handles -- they took a bit more time only because not all the drawers were the same size. For $50 this tool is WELL worth it. It cut my time down BIG time. The time I saved justified the purchase no question. Now, that being said you do need to measure and set up the tool which can take a bit of time for the first knob/pull/handle. Man -- this align-rite drill guide is PERFECT for doing kitchen pulls, knobs, handles. The owner of the house is EXTREMELY happy with the install.
However, once you have it setup you can breeze thru the rest of them -- assuming the cabinets are the same size. I knocked out about 15 pulls on cabinets in about 45 minutes and that was taking my time. Even if you are just using it one time for yourself -- you can use it and turn around and re-sell it. Thanks AMAZON.
I am so glad I bought this gadget. It saved me so much time installing pulls on doors and drawers. I tried the cheap plastic ones you can buy at home improvement stores but they were worthless. Definitely invest in this if you have more than a few pulls or knobs to install.
I still would not do drawers without the jig. You still have to measure and get the first one straight but then after that you can fly through the rest. Man, all i can say is i wouldn't think about doing any cabinets without this jig. The price was more than i was really wanting to pay (50 dollars), but after i got the jig i was pleased with the quality. This was especially quick when doing cabinets vs. drawers. It should last more than my lifetime. I could have made a jig, but i would have spent a good bit more time building jigs than i spent installing all my drawers/cabinets hardware.
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