Thanks for the welcome!

I have tried with a spoiler board of plywood but that didn't help. Or rather it did help a bit but didn't stop the problem.

I'm using a Colt 10mm brad point drill bit - a normal HSS wood drill bit for a hand drill. The wood is pine.

You think the hand drill is spinning too fast? I can slow it down. The top speed of the drill is probably something like 2000rpm.

The 50mm/min is the plunge speed. The traverses between holes are much faster.

Would peck drilling, with all the up and down movements, ultimately be faster?

When you say "drill bit" do you mean the kind of bit you'd put in a hand drill / drill press or do you mean some kind of special end mill for drilling you'd use in a router head? I'm presuming you can't put a normal drill bit in a router head because it would spin too fast. The router head I have is a cheap hand router with limited speed control. Can you recommend a router head?

Thanks!