Veritas Shelf Drilling Jig — and the Amazon Alternative
Both jigs drill a row of shelf-pin holes at a fixed offset. The Veritas is Lee Valley direct; the Kreg is the one you can order today.
Disclosure:As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. This costs you nothing and never changes which tools we recommend. Read more.
Drilling shelf-pin holes is the job where small errors are least forgivable. If the row on the left side of a cabinet sits 2 mm higher than the row on the right, every shelf rocks, and there is no fixing it afterwards short of plugging and redrilling.
The fix is a jig that references off the cabinet’s front edge rather than off a measurement. Both sides then inherit the same offset regardless of how carefully you marked anything.
Veritas makes a well-regarded version and Lee Valley sells it direct. The Kreg jig scored here does the same thing and is the one Amazon stocks.
How the indexing works
The jig covers a section of holes at a fixed spacing. Drill them, then slide the jig along and drop a locating pin into the last hole you drilled. That pin sets the spacing for the next section, so a run of any length stays on the same grid without measuring.
Get the first placement right and the rest follows. That is the part worth being slow about.
Match the jig to your hardware
Shelf pins come in 5 mm (the European standard, and what most flat-pack and cabinet hardware uses) and 1/4 in. The jigs are made in both sizes and the difference is real — a 5 mm pin in a 1/4 in hole rattles, and a 1/4 in pin will not enter a 5 mm hole.
Buy the one that matches the pins you intend to use, not the one that is cheaper this week.
Two practical notes
The guides are polymer. Let the drill do the work and keep it square; a bit forced at an angle cuts the guide, and once a guide is oval the jig is finished.
And on a tall bookcase, each index is a small opportunity for drift. Mark a reference line across both sides before you start, check against it every few sections, and you will catch a problem while it is still fixable.
What works
- The jig indexes off the cabinet edge, so both sides of a carcass get holes at exactly the same offset and shelves sit level without shimming
- A pin drops into the last hole drilled to register the next section, which keeps a long run in step without measuring
- The 5 mm bit and stop collar are included and matched to standard euro shelf pins, so there is nothing else to work out
What doesn't
- It drills 5 mm holes only — if your hardware is 1/4 in you need the separate 1/4 in version, and the two are not interchangeable
- The polymer guides will wear if you use them without care; a bit run at an angle chews the guide rather than the workpiece
- For a full-height bookcase you are indexing the jig many times, and every index is a chance to introduce a cumulative error