Buffalo No. 15 Drill Press Restoration

[110octane]

I had a strange font appear in my post and I could not get it to go away. There were some other items missing. The belt guard was conjured up from 16 gauge mild steel sheet. I made the depth adjustment screw out of a piece of half decent all thread. The motor that came with it was an old cast iron 1/3 HP model and the starting coils and switch were fried beyond all repair. The motor mount is a hinged rig made from 11 gauge sheet. The original rigging allowed the motor to pivot in the Z axis plane. This design tends to twist the belt slightly, so I went with a horizontal pivot idea. The motor pulley had been pilfered, the new pulley is from ebay. I got the head/column stop from Joe at Plaza Machinery. The column is the same size as the competing Delta and Atlas. This is a fantastic little press, smooth as glass, with spindle runout < 0.002". Someday I might be able to budget a decent keyless chuck; it might come close to performing as a "sensitive" drill press. Hope yours meets expectations.

Your choice of the Majic brand of paint is an excellent choice.

 

[wildo]

Wow- awesome stuff 110octane! Really good info there- especially about not cranking down on the head column clamp. Also interesting about the pre/post war models! Sounds like you've really put a lot of work into yours! It sure is a looker!

I'm a little bummed about the paint. The first coat I put on had a nice gloss to it (in spite of being a matte finish- apparently the catalysis is supposed to increase the gloss). I have a space heater in the room blasting on high to help the cure time; it's likely around upper 80s maybe low 90s in the room at the moment. When I went in to put coat #2 on, the second coat seemed to dry quite fast and is not at all glossy. It also left a good amount of brush marks. I guess I have the temp a bit too hot. Kind of a drag. Still looks cool, but I did like the gloss finish I had going.

 

[110octane]

Thanks for the kudos. I was given the little press by a friend who bought it along with a South Bend 10" lathe. He was not interested in the drill press primarily because it was filthy, seriously damaged, and missing some bits and he already had a drill press. The table looks like a practice plate for testing bits (the arc of shame). I took a liking to it because of the Buffalo name. There was more work than I bargained for, but the fact that it was free gave me a reasonable budget to get it running. It would look more vintage with an old motor, but I went for functionality over authenticity. I used it as a test to see how well double row angular contact ball bearings perform in these little drill presses as compared with the el cheapo single row (deep race?) ball bearings. The difference is very noticeable and I have since replaced the spindle bearings in my little DuraCraft Taiwan drill press with the angular contact pattern. I really like the little Buffalo, it is very smooth operating; it is just a pleasure to use for light small work.

I had good results with the Majic enamel with the catalyst on the Atlas lathe stand (I sprayed it). It did seem to take longer to "set" than most of the automotive urethanes that I have used. I may not have added enough catalyst. I painted the Buffalo with the "hammered finish" single component spray cans. That paint is a stock item at the big box stores, Ace Hardware, etc. The Buffalo was stripped with a number of agents, including lye, the head had to be very clean for the brazing task, all bare metal was covered first with an etching primer, followed by a standard one component enamel primer, and then three top coats of hammered. Sometimes if the first coat is not thoroughly cured, a premature second coat will "melt" the coat underneath and will lose gloss or worse, crinkle. For we home shops painting is problematic and take great patience.

Let us know how things work out.
Geoff

 

[chevydyl]

Lol that arc is pretty awesome, other than that it looks great man, I appreciate you guys sharing the restoration of these old tools, very inspiring and will hopefully drive others to do the same, I'd rather have old used American iron over brand new import iron any day

 

[wildo]

Yeah- it just blows me away that these machines- hell ANY machine can have an arc of shame like that. People are really stupid... How could you not know that you're through your material?? Just crazy. I love all the upgrades you've done to your machine, Geoff- inspiring for sure! Once a get a bit more experience under my belt, I will definitely be revisiting this project. I have a couple things in mind that I'd like to do. Regarding the spindle itself, I found a machine shop around here that specifically specializes (is that redundant?) in machine spindle repair. Now, I think they probably specialize in LARGE machine spindle repair, but I sent them an email enquiring about cleaning up this spindle. I'm not really one to farm out work, but I also recognize limits to my skill set. That said, I am so unbelievably excited to be picking up my SB 9A lathe this weekend! (See- I don't even have a metal lathe yet, let alone the experience of running one.) In time, I can revisit this project. It's certainly not going anywhere! I'd like to get the spindle in decent shape and purchase a new chuck. Otherwise, I'll put it back together and just deal with whatever runout I have from the quill bearing seats. I know this stuff is minor work for you guys, but it's not minor work for me.

Anyway, here's some kind of low res sneak peaks of the paint job. Clearly I was inspired by that press on vintagemachinery.

 

[wildo]

Oh- regarding the motor, I also went with functionality over authenticity. I have the old cast iron motor, but that wasn't my intention. I bought a new Baldor M3116 1hp motor (another lesson learned, obviously 1hp is far too much for a drill press that I can only get a 1/2" chuck for!) and VFD. I want it to look cool, but I also bought it specifically for the "old iron meets new technology" handiness.

 

[chevydyl]

Nice, yeah 1hp is quite alot for that application. You can always swap it out for a 1/2 or 3/4 when you need the 1hp for a belt sander build

 

[wildo]

Nice, yeah 1hp is quite alot for that application. You can always swap it out for a 1/2 or 3/4 when you need the 1hp for a belt sander build

To be fair, when I got it I thought it would be a piece of cake to mount a 5/8" chuck on there and go to town drilling big stuff. Ha! We all start somewhere, right!? Like I said- lesson learned. And you're absolutely right- not like this motor will go to waste. I can definitely swap it out for something smaller later. Hey- maybe I'll put the 1hp motor on the lathe...

 

[wildo]

Here's an update on the drill press.

Painting is complete (outside of a few touch up areas) and the drill press is assembled. I haven't pressed in the new bearings yet as I'm still trying to figure out what to do about the spindle. I have a couple real leads now for repair/replacement though.

I choose to color match the Baldor motor color in hopes of tying in the new looking motor with the vintage equipment.




I then moved on to electrical. I made a mounting plate for the VFD and mounted a hobby box on standoffs so that the front of the box would match the front of the VFD. This is for a main power switch.


The VFD and main switch mount are then sandwiched between the motor and motor mount:


After that I fabricated a mounting bracket to hold the remote speed and direction control. I was going to bend this bracket, but ended up cutting it and welding it together. Probably for the better, anyway.


There was just enough extra room on the quill pinion shaft to account for the piece of steel mounting between the head and the quill return spring housing. So that's where I mounted my control. The control box has a graphic that I created and had printed onto sticky backed vinyl. I didn't exactly get the colors right (the intention was to match the VFD colors) but I think it's good enough.


Here's an overall view of the electronics mounting:


Note that all of the electronics are purposefully mounted on the left side of the head because of how the drill press will sit in my machine shop. You won't be able to see all those electronics when you walk into the room and look at it, and therefore maintain that wicked cool vintage look. That was intentional.


Really all that's left now is to get the spindle repaired/replaced and then assemble those parts into the head.

 

[wildo]

Here is a video showing the electronics in action.