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Help needed; Finding plans / Ideas for a homemade drillpress.

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NeoTech:
Well mostly of my doings in the workshop involves drilling stuff atm, cause im building machines and tooling to complete my workshop.
And a friend of mine, suggested i would make my own Drillpress.. Well, i have no idea how a drill press works. It would obviously use v-belts im guessing.

But then well most homemade drillpresses seems to be a holder for a handheld shopdrill or small jewelry drills.

Have anyone done such a project? I cant imagine it would be hard to make when you do have plans to follow.
For pillar i have some 2m steel pipe with about 25mm in the wall, and about 100mm in diameter, should be a good column to start from. (sorry bout the metric, but 1" wall and 4" OD - is prob. close).

Lew_Merrick_PE:
The basics of a drill press are fairly simple.  I have designed (and had built) a couple of dozen of special purpose presses over the years for various products & processes.  The major challenge for a traditional, long-throw drill press for the home shop is making the spline drive that allows the spindle to travel while transmitting torque.

There are several non-traditional ways to deal with that issue.  The question is: What do you want to do with this drill press?  What is the largest size bit you wish to use?  What is the smallest bit you wish to use?  What is the maximum RPM you would need?  What is the minimum RPM you would need?  How much stroke do you need?  How much torque (at what speed) do you need?  What is the clearance (swing) between the centerline of the spindle and the column you require?

These are the types of questions you need to answer.  I believe that Lindsay Press still sells the David Gingery series on building your own metalworking tools.  One of the volumes in that series deals with building a drill press.  ???

PekkaNF:
 Ideas

1) Small: GHT Universal Pillar Tool
http://modelenginenews.org/meng/upt/index.html
et.al. there are few made out of simple drill press and some are build on this spirit and used only for threading

There is a book "Workshop Techniques" which is actually mostly about UPT and VDH, bit like the Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is not very much about the zen or motorcycle maintenance, but very good reading and some parts useful.

Kits:
http://www.hemingwaykits.com/acatalog/Universal_Pillar_Tool.html
Scroll down to sensitive drill....

2) IMHO no point of duplicating/imitating bog standard drill press (unless you chrome it) :clap: so go all the way:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/bca/index.html
See drive

or even this beauty:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/elliott%20mini%20jig/index.html

PekkaNF

NeoTech:
hmm well.. I usually need to drill the small pilot holes before i bore something larger..
smallest, 2mm.. biggest, hmm about 25mm.. im thinking of doing a "swing" table on a sleeve and a rack and pinion to be able to rise and lower the table. Ive found this old 3kW electric motor, that is 3 phase lying around in the garage from some other project so im thinking belt drive and a three speed controller for the motor..

i have a hard time to wrap my head around that "spline drive" thingy. I cant really in my head see how it should be able to spin and move up and down at the same time..

Anyway, fixed head and moveable drill table i think its the best way to go about this. I need about 100mm of travel for the drill but the table need to be lowered for larger stuff.

Maybe to big of a project.. but i like bigger projects.

andyf:

--- Quote ---i have a hard time to wrap my head around that "spline drive" thingy. I cant really in my head see how it should be able to spin and move up and down at the same time..

--- End quote ---

I think my mill has a similar arrangement. Look at the fifth colour photo here: http://www.lathes.co.uk/dore%20westbury/ .
Sticking up from the top of the spindle is the long thin tube you can see projecting above the pulleys (ignore the big ally canister - that's an epicyclic back gear).  You can also see one of two long keyways running down the tube. A bronze plate is  fixed to the top of the pulley with a hole for the tube to pass through, and two inward pointing lugs which engage with the keyways.  So, as the quill is moved up/down, taking the spindle with it, the tube slides up and down in the bronze plate, and the lugs transmit the drive from the pulleys to the tube and spindle.

Andy

PS it's a tube, rather than a solid shaft, so you can get a drawbar down it.

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