Do you have a good chuck like a supernova or a oneway?
They have a pen jaw set that is more accurate then the one you got, I had to switch in order to get more accurate centers.
Tips
- for harder woods use a centering bitHigh speed steel Combined Drills And Countersinks
- use bigger blanks until you get the hang of things
- I have found that brat tip bits wonder and go off center, once the tip hits the wrong spot, it's off, I've switched to parabolic tip.
- Barely touch the blank with the bit and approach very slowly and allow the bit to stabilize before drilling into the blank
- go Slow! back out the drill about every 1/2" in order to clean the flutes, in some materials you bay feel tempted to continue but the pressure and the heat will expand and break the material. Some woods produce gases that actually explode, well it's more like a loud pop but it does blow out the end of the blank.
- Listen to everything we say on the forum and implement immediately! (ok, actually take everything we say with tweezers use what you think will best for you)
Everybody here has a way of doing things, some are more difficult, some are easier and some don't even make sense until you try it. Just try to have fun and don't worry about precision to much, for those who love doing this, pens can be very forgiving.
Joey