Hey guys, I know of a great outline describing how to shape before drilling, but I'm sworn to secrecy. It's a safety concern of the author, and the fact that the outline is no longer completely current (not a trade secret, or anything like that). I'll let the author know about this thread and see if he wants to chime in on it.
For one, you really need special chamber bits to do it at all successfully. See the following threads:
viewtopic.php?t=2174&start=0
viewtopic.php?t=2191&highlight=
The basic idea is after you refine your shape on the disk or what have you, you sketch the drilling lines and intersections for the drilling all around the outside of the stummel. Then while locating the end points of those lines with a dead center in your tail stock, you hold the stummel in your hands to hold and guide it while pushing it into the spinning drills or bits (which are chucked in the headstock) with your tail stock.
The idea is you're pushing with the tailstock using a dead center, which is locating the end point of where that hole would be should it continued to the outside of the stummel (hopefully you'll stop in time
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
. The holes will intersect in accordance with your lines because your tailstock and headstock are perfectly aligned (or should be at least).
Hard to describe without pics.
I'm extremely excited about getting a set of bits from Brad, and starting to experiment with this. My understanding is most of the Danish makers are using this approach, as well as many of the top makers in the US and elsewhere, and it's far easier to optimize grain and other characteristics of the block this way.