My drill press
is an old Craftsman that I bought in the early 70's. It uses
an unusual 8-step pulley and narrow
belt which looks a little strange but works extremely well.
An auxiliary table bolts to the back
of the standard table for angled holes or vertical
drilling. This is one of the good features of this drill
press, but also one of its weaknesses. Because the tables rotate,
there is no rack and pinion to support the table and it could
fall (although it never has). My first solution was to add a
counter weight suspended from
a pulley on the back of the
drill. This worked well, but a visitor to my website suggested
another approach using an inexpensive boat
trailer jack from Harbor Freight to lift and support the
table. The jack is simply clamped
to the central column with hardware which came with the unit.
I made a couple of maple support
extensions which fit over the end of the jack's lifting tube.
These are shaped to fit a recess on the bottom of the table casting
and add an additional 3 or 6 inches to the total lift range.
I had decided to make an accessory tray for my drill press when I remembered that I had a column mounted hold down in my parts bin. I found this device in a salvage yard many years ago but never found it to be all that useful. It took only a few minutes to mount a shallow cake pan and cut some rubber drawer liner mesh to fit the tray.
I made a drill press table for woodworking. I slip two metal rods through the base of the table to facilitate drilling long boards. A Jorgensen hold down slips over one of two bolt heads on the rear of the fence.
I recently picked up two 18" anodized aluminum fence segments which accept standard 1/4" hex head bolts in the slots. I cut one into 10" and 8" lengths which are the ones I use most often, but I can exchange one of these with a longer piece when the situation requires. Star shaped fixture knobs are used to secure the aluminum fence segments, and the entire fence simply clamps on the table top with fixture knobs from below. I made some sliding stop blocks and a sliding hold down to prevent small pieces from "climbing" the drill bit.
Replaceable inserts are easily removed, turned around, and discarded. Because most of the holes that I drill are small, I modified one of the inserts to accept small strips of 1/4" plywood which are easier to prepare and are also reversible.
I often use the drill press with a 2-axis machinist's vise. This has been mounted to a wooden base so that it clamps to the table and is easy to mount or remove. Hardwood inserts are used when drilling pen blanks to be turned on the lathe.
A V-block made from some scrap hard maple is used to hold and center round items.
Drill bits are stored in shop made drill caddy or a carrier which holds Forstner and brad point bits.
A mortise attachment, which accepts standard mortise bits and chisels, can be installed for cutting mortises.
I recently found this old Atlas Press bench top drill press in a junk shop. It was pretty rusty, but cleaned up nicely.
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