a pin and hole jig

we had a little run of tables with leaves lately and it caused me to appreciated anew a jig we made a few years back for drilling pin and holes in table leaves. above is the walnut table we finished recently .. that had three leaves. click the photos to enlarge them ..

the jig could be made of all wood too, but we chose aluminum for the top for light weight, thinness and stability over time.
you can either use a center mark and arrange the orientation so that you use one side for holes and one side for pins as shown in the top photo or you can cut everything to length and square first and then use the sliding stops shown above .... you can purchase the drill bushing you need to build this jig from mcmaster-carr ... we have different spacings for different table sizes ... in the cad drawing, i drew ones that i thought would be universal. we don't have that many, but if i were building it again, i might ...
i tuned it up for this long table with 4 leaves we were cutting on the cnc for our friends johannes (the wood hat guy) and deb, who are building the table. sample test pieces above ...
after installing the holes and pins, trevor put it on the router, cut the channels for the mother of pearl inlay, the rounded corners and all the leaves to length ... i suppose you could do this by hand .... but i wouldn't want to ...
the blanks being checked for square, straight edges and parrallel.
the finished table parts ... lined up fine ...