Woodriver Drill Guide

[Von]

Spurred by my planned workbench build, a Woodcraft sale, and the cold freezing a hole in my wallet, I bought a Woodriver Drill Guide along with the edge guide. For context, I previously owned the Milescraft guide and hated it as it constantly bound up on my when the drill went up and down, so I spend a lot of time wrestling with it and ultimately got rid of it.

The edge guide went on easily enough. It screws onto the bottom of the guide, so it does raise the whole guide by 3/8" and hence lowers your maximum depth of cut. It comes with 2x 12" long 1/4" diameter rods which can be replaced easily enough with any length you like. The rods are easily removed so you can leave the add-on guide base attached for normal use. I haven't used the edge guide past attaching it. I'll follow up when I do. Other assembly was trivial.

The general feel of the guide is... mediumish. It's a mixture of aluminum and hard plastic. Doesn't feel cheap, but doesn't have that super solid pleasurable to use feeling.

It works well, sliding smoothly and is stable even with my drill with my biggest battery mounted in it. It doesn't have a spring to return the drill up, but it has a knob for locking the drill vertically. I found it fairly natural to raise the drill and then lock it up after each hole. Installing bits in the chuck with the drill attached is a little awkward as the drill tends to spin - three hands to hold the chuck wrench, drill bit, and drill would be useful. The guide has the ability to drill angles, but I didn't play with that as I don't expect to use it often if at all.

The question occurred to me: how straight does it drill? The answer is complicated. What I figured out is you can't go too wrong but its not guaranteed to be perfect. I drilled a series of 1/2" holes with a forstner bit, inserted a 1/2" rod and put a square against it. Each one was a little off in a different way. I found a variety of reasons, such as woodchips off of the bottom of the guide, bumps on the 2x test piece, my pushing unevenly... you get the idea. I would have to think hard about how to come up with a good enough test to measure any actual manufacturing error. The good thing, is I was never very far off perfect - see final photo for the worst I got.

Guide and edge guide separateed:

Assembled with drill mounted.

Sample test result, you can see a little daylight between by rod and the square. This was as bad as any of my tests got, meaning you can't go too wrong.

 

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

Looks like a formidable guide!!

[Immortan D]

I have a Milescraft of similar design. I get better results when I use a small drill instead of the usual beasts.

[Von]

On 2/9/2026 at 1:26 PM, Immortan D said:

I have a Milescraft of similar design. I get better results when I use a small drill instead of the usual beasts.

Would you be willing to help me understand what you mean by a "small drill"? Thanks in advance.

[Immortan D]

I use the little one from that picture.

[Von]

On 2/10/2026 at 7:41 AM, Immortan D said:

I use the little one from that picture.

Thanks. I don't have one like that and it wouldn't have occurred to me there might be a difference.

[Immortan D]

I use that small drill mostly for drilling pilot holes and things like that. The reduced size and weight makes many tasks a lot easier for me.

[Geoffrey]

That drill guide looks much better than the Craftsman one I have. On mine, you need to remove the chuck from the drill, screw the chuck onto the guide, and screw the guide onto the now chuckless drill. Why would anyone design a drill guide like that?!

[Von]

On 2/10/2026 at 10:33 AM, Geoffrey said:

That drill guide looks much better than the Craftsman one I have. On mine, you need to remove the chuck from the drill, screw the chuck onto the guide, and screw the guide onto the now chuckless drill. Why would anyone design a drill guide like that?!

Seems like the thing to do would be buying a dedicated drill for the guide and leaving it on?

[Beechwood Chip]

On 2/10/2026 at 10:33 AM, Geoffrey said:

On mine, you need to remove the chuck from the drill, screw the chuck onto the guide, and screw the guide onto the now chuckless drill.

So, you need a drill that has a removable chuck with the correctly threaded connection, and (as @Von suggested) dedicate it to the guide?  I guess it's less expensive than a drill press, and takes up less shop space.

[Geoffrey]

I would devote a drill to this guide, but.... I have gone through a few rounds of trying to remove the chuck from a couple older drills--removing the screw, chucking a large allen wrench and whacking it with a hammer. So far, I haven't been able to loosen the chuck. I think this guide is destined for going to the Habitat for Humanity Restore store, and I will continue using a block of wood with a 90 degree hole pre-drilled at the drill press as my guide for adding additional holdfast holes in the workbench.