1890s - 1910 B.F. Barnes Drill Press - Camelback

By no means an expert but I have a similar drill press B F Barnes 20inch with down feed that I plan to restore.
Have disassembled much of it for inspection so can tell of things to check.

The shafts run on babbit bearings and there are several areas to check :
Oil feed holes on the top of the bearing blocks allow dirt to enter so the bearings could be full of trash and the shafts could be scored.
Clean bearings and shaft before rotating.

The main drive belt pulls down on the horizontal drive shaft but the bevel gears on the other end, thrust the shaft up causing oval wear in the bearings
and allowing the bevel gears to run out of alignment and wear heavily.
Inspect condition and alignment of bevel gears. You will probably need to re-pour the bearings and may have to replace the bevel gears.

The bevel gears also produce thrust along the horizontal shaft so if the bearings don't need to be poured the thrust bushing may need to be adjusted or shimmed
to align the gears.

Lots more to tell of the spindle but out of time for now .
Jim
 
I've no personal experience with those, but last fall scanned and posted a 1903 catalog from B.F Barnes Co. over on the Vintage Machinery site at: http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/detail.aspx?id=15254
It is unfortunately missing a couple pages, but does show a variety of drill presses, including 20" versions with round and square bases, as well as round and square tables. Here's an example that's similar to yours:

BF_Barnes_20_in.jpg
It appears that B.F. Barnes was in business for less than 10 years (1899-1907; http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1062 ), and their machines aren't all that common. There are only 3 B.F. Barnes machines listed in the Photo Index at Vintage Machinery ( http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1062&tab=4 ); maybe you can post some pictures of yours there as well.
 
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The Barnes looks very much like my 20" Silver MFG. Drill, but mine doesn't have power down feed. The patent date on mine is 1890.
 
Quill and spindle.....
The spindle shaft is rotated by the large bevel gear. A hardened key, fitted inside the gear body, transmits force via the keyway in the spindle shaft and allows the
spindle to be raised or lowered.
I see in your picture a key on the spindle shaft. Is that the drive key, broken and out of position?

The body of the gear rotates in a babbit bearing. It uses a phenolic thrust bearing which is pinned to prevent it's rotation.
Wear of the babbit or thrust will cause the gears to run out of alignment. Gear alignment is critical to prevent wear.
The keyway in the spindle and the drive key need to be checked for wear and dirt as well as the bearing areas.

The spindle shaft is somewhat hard and the ID of the cast iron quill acts as a radial bearing so the clearance should be tight.
Perhaps 0.0015" .
There's ball thrust bearings top and bottom of the quill but if the adjustment nuts were not correctly set they could be damaged or have
wobbled in the seats wearing the ends of the quill. Dirt in any area of the quill assembly will have caused wear problems.
I don't think the thrust bearings carry any radial thrust.

The quill OD should have a sliding fit in the cast housing of the drill press. That housing is split and has a adjustment bolt to snug the fit up
but the OD of the quill and the ID of the housing are worn too much then the quill can have too much horizontal travel.

That's a general description so you will need to disassemble, clean, and measure everything to know what repairs are needed.
My drill press is still disassembled so its no problem if you would like pictures of the components.
Jim
 
Looks similar to my Canedy-Otto. Wonder if some of the castings came out of the same foundry for these various manufacturers?
Glenn


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Those are beautiful old machines, and still on my to be acquired list. Glenn, and Piney, looks like you got lucky in the table desecration area. Mike
 
Yep, my table has been very well treated over the years.

BTW, There are two camelback for sale now in the Seattle area on Craigslist. A nice operable Barnes with motor and bag of drill bits for $750, the other for $400. The Barnes seems to be in real nice shape- just came out of an old warehouse downtown, where it has likely been stored for the last 100 years.

https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/tld/5994138326.html

Glenn
 
My table looked like Swiss cheese. I filled it with steel epoxy and took a skim cut to clean it up.

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