Thank you for couragement.
I had tought on putting the tailstock on tow. It's pretty standard on some (russian) lathes and I saw it on austrian hobbylathe (Klippfeld GmbH). But the tailstock on my lathe is too short and rikety for it.
I have been thinking a little of building a bridge to bypass that cross slide. I don't think it will have much positive function on drilling operation.
Thank you for the power steering pump idea. I have to look if I can dig something up fast. I didn't find the thread on practicalmachinist. Maybe a wrong search word?
You have a whole lot bigger hurdle ahead. Gun drilling needs a whole lot more on coolant pressure and is more critical on feed. Haven't tried that but talked some years back on machinist that did some oil holes and such.
I would not worry too much about the power feed demand (on small drill diameters least) feed is slow and you have a huge mechanical advantage.Unless you want fast rapids....
I have been playing on drill power calculators and it looks like 8,5 mm drill needs about 200-300w of pure power to punch trough alloyed steel bar on table feeds and speed. Needs something like 4 Nm of torque and 700N of feed force.
Those still needs factoring with mechanical and electrical efficiencies before we are talking about motor speeds and powers.
http://www.kennametal.com/en/resources/calculators/holemaking-calculators/torque-thrust-power.html8,5 mm dia drill, feed 0,12 mm/r and cutting speed 14 m/min as table values from manufacturer for tough steels.
Screenshots from source values, some results here as text:
n Spindle speed: 524.2751 1/min
Qz Metal removal rate: 3.57 cm3/min
Vf Unit per minute: 62.91 mm/min
Tc Time in cut: 95.37 sec.
Your Results
Mc / Md Torque: 2.978 Nm
Ff Thrust (Feed Force): 679 N
Pc Power: 0.16 kilowatt
I don't know where to get those german made drils from usa, but I'm pretty sure there are similar ones. And anyways gun drills seem to be really really plentifull there!
Pekka