rockwell drill press

Yesterday Chad brought me an awesome Rockwell drill press. It turns out that a local technician had seen Chad's article in popular mechanics and decided to give Chad a couple super large drill presses. Chad gave me the smaller one of the two presses. Score! I can't wait to see Chad's press and his new drywalled studio space that he's been working on.

reamed casting

Chad asked me to help him ream the cast iron piece that he is using for his 3D printer drill press. We set it up on my Bridgeport and as usual it took longer to do the set-up than it did to actually ream the holes. The casting came out really nice. The Stratasys linear rail rods slipped right in once we were finished. It was cool to see this part go from cnc routed pink foam to completed iron part. I'll hopefully be able to post some pics of the drill press turned 3d printer soon.

millers falls drill press

Chad and I stopped past an antique store on Saturday. We came across the piece you see above and Chad offered the store owner 5 bucks for the piece. It was broken and had been repaired in a few places but we weren't sure what it was, but we assumed it was a drill of some kind. I took a few pics of Chad's find and then later that night I started looking for something similar on the interweb. I finally tracked down a Millers Falls catalog from 1905 that had the drill listed. I had to text Chad and let him know that he paid $1 more than it's retail price. I also loved some of the other tools in the catalog. The anvil vise drill press is particularly interesting.

drill presses

I'm diggin' these...

howe & fant turret

While I was snooping around Chad's studio, I spotted the turret that he had mentioned to me one day at work. I have to say that I was mesmerized by this. I have seen turrets for lathes as well as turret attachments for lathe tailstocks, but this one seemed a bit different. Chad told me we could work out a deal on this one, so I brought it back to my studio to see if I could do some research on it. I looked up some things and came across the following images of drill press turrets, but honestly couldn't find much. I decided I would take it apart and look things over.

The turret uses a no. 2 morse taper and my Duro drill press just happens to have a no.2 spindle. Chad and I both discussed the fact that there was a sleeve that would need to match the quill diamet of the drill press this was going on. I checked my quill and it was too large for the collar. I figured I could machine the collar if need be as it was a simple part, but I also figured that I would be able to bore the existing collar to fit. I chucked the piece in the lathe and carefully bored it to fit the Duro quill. Once that collar was on, I was able to thread the inner collar and secure the large spring inside the upper aluminum housing. The rest was "cake" with just six set screws to secure things in place. I need to get some more chucks to attach to the turret before I can take advantage of it's capabilities, but I like it so far. I'm not sure how much use this I do sometime perform a lot of repetitive center drilling, pilot hole, drilling, threading, so maybe it will serve it's purpose in my shop. Time will tell.

new drill press

I went over the Chad's on Saturday to get some lunch with Him and Chuck at Nite Owl. I went early to look at a drill press that Chad had for sale. I've been looking for a drill press for the garage, so he had one that was calling my name. The press is really quite large and serves as an intermediate size press between a small import and a floor model. Just perfect for most of the work I do at home. 

While I was at Chad's I  snapped some pics of his latest finds. He's collected a few toolboxes to say the least. It's amazing the pieces that he has gotten along with the stories behind them. I look forward to seeing his work take shape this next semester. 

The new press (although not as cool as his new green press) has earned it's keep this weekend. I've used it a ton already; not sure why it took me so long to get a drill press at home.