The Avey Lives!

[John Hasler]

looks really cool, even if I don't quite understand how it works. Does it use a T-bar with a bolt perpindicular to the bar through the chuck key drift slot? Then you screw the collet on to the bolt and the T-bar stops it rotating?

Yes. The ends of the bar are threaded 11 1/2 TPI to match the nut (actually a 2" pipe coupling). When I turn the nut clockwise it bears down on the collar and drives the bar up, pulling the bolt up which in turn draws the collet into the taper just as the more usual drawbar would. So far it's working pretty well.

If this ends up giving you problems (no idea if it will or won't) you could always get an MT3 taper ER collet chuck which aren't too expensive ($100 inc. collets I think).

Still kind of expensive for me. Besides, I'd still need a way to hold the chuck in, and I want to still be able to use MT3 tools.

That X-Y vise is completely dwarfed on that table though

I'm hoping to someday find a table of some sort that I can salvage off a scrapped mill or grinder or somesuch.

 

[AlanR]

That is one hell of a drill press. Guess it wasn't really designed for hobbyists.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

that's even more ingenious than I thought, nice one. As for used mill tables, I've seen larger X-Y tables and ex-mill tables turn up occasionally on CL around the country, but pretty rare. You might have more luck touring some scrap yards for junked machines with functioning tables, although that's a guess at best.