# New use for a seldom used drill press



## 8ntsane (Mar 6, 2012)

This afternoon, I was in the shop drilling a series of holes in a tube a buddy brought in. It was a baffel that slips onto the exhaust of his motor bike. Im  drilling away, and the neighbours 13 yr old kid come in the shop looking for my dog. She usually stands around and chats awhile, in chatting, she comments how cute that little drill press is sitting on the floor. I thought, yea, its cute all right, I havnt used the thing in a few yrs. Mean while , I using my tool post , side driller, and I have my spindle indexer set up, and my hand was getting a bit tired from drilling. The kid says, you should use that cute little drill press! I thinking what? Naw, then I cant index the rows of holes. The kid says why dont you attach it up there some how, and use it? (':nuts:')

Thought hmmmmmmm, ('') this kid could be on to some thing here. So I took the tool post off, Grabbed the drill press, unbolted the base, removed the table, and (':shocked:') WTF, this works quite nicely. Had it rigged up and drilling holes in like 5-mins.
I stood there drilling my rows of holes, grinnin away, thinking , why didnt I think of that? The kid says, see, its easyer that way isnt it?

Long story short,,here is the pics
Lesson? Never under estimate the youngin,s!  (':biggrin:')


















I got to looking at this after the job, and I think Ill rig this up so it can be layed down, so drilling into the face of items are also possible.


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## 8ntsane (Mar 6, 2012)

Bill Gruby said:


> Nice job. Been there done that. I did it with a UniMat milling head. Yer stuff is tooooooo clean. Don't make me come there and get it dirty. ROTFLMAO
> 
> "Billy G"



2 - shop vacs keep the shop clean 
I gotta keep it pretty clean, or the dog tracks in the house.


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## 8ntsane (Mar 6, 2012)

Bill 
you got any pics of the unimat on your lathe?
Ive almost got everything I need to mount a J-head Bridgeport up on the headstock of the Sidney (':biggrin:')


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## Redirish (Mar 6, 2012)

A clean shop is a sure sign of a sick mind. :whistle:


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## Charley Davidson (Mar 6, 2012)

Kids say the darnedest things :biggrin:  That's a really neat setup as is all your cool stuff


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## Tony Wells (Mar 6, 2012)

Out of the mouth of babes! Nice idea. I'll plant another seed. Put a fly cutter, boring head of some sort of cutter in it and using low spindle speed, cut some concave "barbell" shapes, or mill some helical grooves, using a thread cycle. Of course, this assumes some sort of drawbar or mechanism to retain the chuck/cutter. Just thinking here.


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## 12bolts (Mar 6, 2012)

8ntsane said:


> The kid says, you should use that cute little drill press!.....The kid says why dont you attach it up there some how, and use it?..... why didnt I think of that? The kid says, see, its easyer that way isnt it?



Actually I think you should maybe see if that kid is interested in carving up some metal. Far too many kids these days not interested in the hands on approach.

Cheers Phil


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## Tom Griffin (Mar 6, 2012)

Paul, that is definitely a novel application of a drill press. I'm curious though, do you plan on putting more than one screw in the flange holding it to the compound, or is that one REALLY tight? 

I'm definitely with Bill on this one. If my lathe was that clean I'd be afraid to make chips.

Tom

BTW, what kind of lathe is that? It has a serious amount of cross slide travel.


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## 8ntsane (Mar 6, 2012)

Ya Charley, your right, they do say what ever they are thinking at the time. Got me thinking a bit too. I was curious if this drill dress could be layed down, so I headed back out to the shop just to have another look at this amazing dicovery by a 13 yr old girl. I had a angle plate laying on the bench, and slapped that on the compound, and hey! it will take a slight bit of work to get this to work, but very doable. I would need to make another pinch clamp with 2-fasteners to make it ridgid enough, but thats no big deal. So I think Im going to machine up a new pinch clamp, and also a thicker wall tube thats much shorter than the original. The angle plat would need to be shortened, its a few inches to wide. I will  also do drilling jobs on the face of items mounted in the chuck.

Here,s a few pics of it mounted laying down.














Tony
Oh I hear ya, but I allready have a plan for that. ('')
I have a Bridgeport J-head, and the round ram. This is eventually going to be mounted to the top of the Sidney lathe headstock. The only part I still need is the turret housing for the ram. Finding a round ram BP thats getting parted out is been slow going. I might just pick up a dove tail ram if I run across one, should be easyer to find. The head stock cover on this lathe is massive, and I have the room to just park a complete Bridgeport upper assembley, from the turret on up, with room to spare!(':yikes:') The lathe is over 4,000 pounds , and wont even notice a Bridgey sittin on top.  The J- head is ready to go, 220 single phase, all freshened up. Here,s a few pics of BP in waiting.







When I do find a turret housing, this will be one big a$$ 3 in 1(':shocked:') , AMERICAN style (':biggrin:')


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## 8ntsane (Mar 7, 2012)

TLGriff said:


> Paul, that is definitely a novel application of a drill press. I'm curious though, do you plan on putting more than one screw in the flange holding it to the compound, or is that one REALLY tight?
> 
> I'm definitely with Bill on this one. If my lathe was that clean I'd be afraid to make chips.
> 
> ...



Tom
 I had it on with 2-bolts to use it. But me being me, I allways clean up my mess after each job, and I just set it on for pics with one bolt. Can,t have a import drill press falling over and causing damage to my lathe(':shocked:') That lathe is a 1941 Sidney 14X30 , swings 17 over the ways, 10 over the carriage. These machines will reduce the diameter of round stock from say, 4inches to 3 inches, In 1 pass! One of the baddest chip makers out of Ohio.

I will be putting a full plate on the compound for future use, and bolt it with 4-bolts The crosslide travel is 16 inches, its got lots


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## Charley Davidson (Mar 7, 2012)

Sidney Ohio also has the best strawberry pie ever at "The Spot" MMMMMmmmmmmMMMMMMmmmm


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## talkingmonkey (Mar 7, 2012)

Hi Paul,

Could you comment on the yellow worklamps? That is a sweet lathe by the way.

Regards,

Jeff


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## ScrapMetal (Mar 7, 2012)

Pauls making himself a Smithy...  :biggrin:




Sorry, that's the first thing that came to mind. :lmao:

-Ron


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## Topos (Mar 7, 2012)

*Inspired!!*

Thank you. Your set up gave me a great idea
of how to mount a smaller arrangement on my 
Atlas 618. I have been working on various ways
to mount a holder to make small gears using
the milling attachment.

I want to emulate the Atlas Millerette of the 1930's 
and have sketched various designs.

Instead of the drilling head I shall put in place an adjustable
spindle in the z-axis.

Nice shots.


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## 8ntsane (Mar 7, 2012)

talkingmonkey said:


> Hi Paul,
> 
> Could you comment on the yellow worklamps? That is a sweet lathe by the way.
> 
> ...



Thanks Jeff
I use the yellow in the work lamps to cut down on glare from the shinney spinning objects in the chuck. I tryed different colours , and yellow seemed to work for me. The really bright LEDs used to drive me crazy. They would shine back into my eyes the worst.


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## 8ntsane (Mar 7, 2012)

ScrapMetal said:


> Pauls making himself a Smithy...  :biggrin:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Ron

The pic is all wrong, and the name is SIDNEY
hahahahahaahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Well maybe, sorta, kinda, Naw, Sidney!


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## llarson (Mar 7, 2012)

Nice idea, I have one of those drill presses that came from my dad. Used it for a variety of things already, I think maybe some more uses are going on the list.


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## talkingmonkey (Mar 8, 2012)

I will be trying the yellow lamp strategy.  I find I have the same issue. 

Thanks,

Jeff


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## bobbyjim (Mar 8, 2012)

*Tail Stock Chuck*

8NTSANE

You have a chuck in the tail stock. Is that used for indexing or?


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## 8ntsane (Mar 8, 2012)

bobbyjim said:


> 8NTSANE
> 
> You have a chuck in the tail stock. Is that used for indexing or?



Bobbyjim

I have a few different chucks that get used in the tail stock. Some with, and without bearings. The one you see is just for large drills. Though I have used chucks in the tailstock to aid doing simple indexing. I have at times needed to
do a bolt pattern, or side drilling. Sometimes the work piece has no provision 
to use a dead/live centre, or bull nose centre. In that case,  a chuck in the tail stock is your best friend.

In use to aid you in indexing. Here is a example of indexing, in the most back woods simple form. Ok, the part is allready turned, and you want a bolt pattern
on the face. The 3 jaw chuck can be used with a level set on the jaw to get 3 equally spaced index points. The lathe need not be perfectly level, just make sure you level the jaw for each 120 degree rotation. Works well for a three bolt pattern.
You can allso do a 4-bolt pattern with a 4-jaw and level just as easy at 90 degree
steps as well.

In my case, if Im doing the quick , and dirty method of idexing. I will grab the work piece at the tailstock end with the chuck. This is used to lock the work piece, and spindle in position, while doing these operations.When using a chuck in the tailstock to lock the work piece in position, I would just put the chuck key in place, hang a rope with a weight off the key. This will take up any rotational slack in the quill of the T/S. Hope that makes sense


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## 8ntsane (Mar 8, 2012)

Hi Guys

After playing around with this little drill press last night. Looking for a way to mount it up with the spindle horizontal. See the above pics. I wasnt happy with trying to get around the pole, and pinch clamp. After looking at it again tonight, I decided the pole is got to go. The tin belt sheilds are big , and taking up room I could use, so off they came. The result was a much cleaner, and simple install. About all I have left to do now is make a support so it cant get knocked out of alignment. As shown in these pics, the angle plate is mounted directly to the housing of the drill press. I have a aluminum disc with a step that fits the hole the vertical post used to fit in.

Here is the pics of the revised setup, and if I want to ever use it again in the vertical position, no problem, just slide the tube back in, and tighten up the 2-set screws, and bolt the base to the compound as shown in the first pics. I think this is going to be a very usefull tool.














The pics show how I aligned the drill press spindle using a centre in the 4-jaw, and tailstock.
Set up in this manner, I can back the crosslide up, and get 6 inches from the lathe spindle centre line , to the drill press spindle centre line. That should be plenty. 

Have 2- different shop made QCTP drillers, but this rig out does them both. The step pulley arrangement gives me better selection of speeds. For drilling in the way the pics show, the carriage can be used instead of the DP quill, another plus.


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## Terrywerm (Nov 19, 2012)

Allright, I gotta admit, I love what you've done with the head from the drill press, it should be quite useful.

I promised myself that I wouldn't say anything about... well.... the missing belt guard, but I can't keep quiet about it. I don't want to preach, and I don't want to sound like the safety police, and I certainly don't want to be accused of flaming.

So....  PLEASE, please figure out some sort of guard to cover the pulleys and drive belt. We want you to be a member here for a long time, posting your ideas and projects. As it is, that motor pulley is just too much out in the open and waiting to grab a finger, shirt, or the neighbor girl's hair.


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## 8ntsane (Nov 19, 2012)

terrywerm said:


> Allright, I gotta admit, I love what you've done with the head from the drill press, it should be quite useful.
> 
> I promised myself that I wouldn't say anything about... well.... the missing belt guard, but I can't keep quiet about it. I don't want to preach, and I don't want to sound like the safety police, and I certainly don't want to be accused of flaming.
> 
> So.... PLEASE, please figure out some sort of guard to cover the pulleys and drive belt. We want you to be a member here for a long time, posting your ideas and projects. As it is, that motor pulley is just too much out in the open and waiting to grab a finger, shirt, or the neighbor girl's hair.



Thanks for the concern about the guard Terry
I didn't like the pulleys and belt being open like that either. I had a shield I was using on it, but wasn't happy with it, and still havnt got around to making a new one. I guess that's a project that should be put up to the front of the line. I admit, Ive used that thing enough times, that a shield should be on it at all times. I have been thinking the guard needs to be on a hinge of some sort, to be able to get at the belt and change speeds. I did hold off on the guard thinking I might not use this rig much. Turns out, It will be staying in that configuration, so yes a guard is in order.


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