I was afraid as it looks quite fragile and in my case even more so as I intended to use - and have used - a hand held electric drill. I used a hand drill tool here ($30 or $35) which I screwed into a specially designed holder for the part to be machined; Overall it was pretty tough. Also, I pre-drilled a shallow hole with a shorter bit intended as a starting point to minimize any possible bending/breaking. I drilled sixty pieces of wood from the project with a hole about three inches long in each piece. Anything I could do with just a drill, and finish it while the drill was still in perfect condition.