Finished most of the welding. Just need to put the wheels on and put some plywood in. Also made a revolving table so I can make some large pots for the garden and maybe make a bell mold out of POP.
I've got an old 3/4 hp drill press. How hard would it be to correct the spindle wobble on it? It's out quite a bit. Are the guts of it difficult to replace or machine?
I've never had one apart. I can't imagine it being that bad to work on as long as the spindle is still straight. Then you're down to tired bushings or worn out bearings. Only one way to find out, rip that sucker apart! I approach things that are screwed or already junk as I can't make it worse!
How are you defining wobble? Is the shaft loose in it's bearings (rock back and forth by hand when stationary)
It's serious undertaking to remove quill sloppiness and rack and pinion backlash let alone runout, even a name brand chuck will add to runout. There are some very well made Taiwanese drill presses out there, a local power tool shop sold a brand: "K&K Jih Gwo" for $400 and later upped the price to $700 once they realized it was decent. It was a Morse taper 2 drill, 16 speed and a 3/4Hp motor. The quill was a tight fit and the rack and pinion was snug, so no chatter and perfect countersunk holes. http://www.jihgwo.com.tw/en/products/item/726-k-1720-k-1720f.html
How about starting a new thread with some pictures or video of the issue? This could have some value for others down the road, myself included. Pete
I bet Zaps drill press doesn't have as much runout at these do. If his is old enough, it's probably designed to come apart and be rebuilt. My Atlas from around 1938 looks pretty simple. I knew a guy that had 4 of these in his shop and not one of them would drill a decent hole! Big difference between Chinese and Taiwanese in terms of quality (my god did I just admit that?) Back in the day it was German quality verses the WORLD! Now we compare asians vs asians... https://www.harborfreight.com/8-in-5-speed-bench-drill-press-60238.html
Its an older drill press. Surprisingly there is almost no slop in the horizontal movement of the spindle hut the actual part that you press fit into the back of the chuck is out a lot. It has visible wobble in it as if it was bent at one point. In unsure how much this affects the function if the drill it seems to drill pretty straight. It does seem to stall out frequently which is surprising given its a 3/4 hp drill. Maybe what I really need is a stronger motor? Maybe hooking up a 1.5 hp motor to it might help with stall out? I'll see if I can get pics.
About all you could reasonably do is replace the spindle bearings with some C2 or CM clearance bearings (NSK brand "Clearance Motor") and see if the tighter clearance and precision helps. Most bearing shops locally claim to have never heard of CM bearings but they are off in a separate table in the NSK bearing book. They are about the highest precision closest tolerance bearing that is commonly available. After that you'd be looking at completely dismantling the drill and boring and sleeving the quill then boring and sleeving the pinion gear shaft with eccentric bushes to tune the rack and pinion clearance. Spare drill parts are going to be nonexistent too.
Jacobs #3 taper is the end where you where taking your measurement. 5thou is a fair bit of runout measured right there. By the time you stick a 6inch twist drill in there, that sucker is swinging around like a man without a country! Dig through this guys stuff. I bet this will help.
Thanks I'll watch it. I'm unsure where the runout comes from. I think the Jacob's taper spindle is bent. So maybe the drill is what it is without going nuts on it like Mark mentioned. Still finishing the band saw up another full redo is a little daunting. I finished grinding and painting the parts for the bandsaw. I'm pretty much done with the important bits of the saw now. Doing the final reassembly now. Will align it all again and see how square and true it runs. It still needs other pointless add-ons like a quick disconnect for the blade and a good table fence/extension. But it will finally be fully functional again.
The taper part may very well be what's bent. I wonder if you can slide that part down and indicate above the taper if you unbolt it from the top. If it's straight above that part you can bet it's not a bearing. If it looks like it's terminal, get a hammer and try to beat some of the weeble wobble out of it! Might get lucky. As I've been told around here.... >>>>>>> You do own a lathe! Make a new one!
He'll need to be able to make matching male and female splines to make a new spindle, could make things difficult. The videos seem to show some serious mangling of the chuck taper with what looks like pump plier marks, did the taper get sanded and filed smooth after that making things out of round. At any rate it'll all have to be pulled apart and tested for bends and out of round areas, there may barely be enough metal left to remachine the chuck taper on the lathe and true it up after checking if the spindle is bent somehow.
I spent some time dialing in the blade and table. I've got it all square within about 0.5 degrees. I could probably get it closer if I tried but for now I think that's decent enough.
Seems to be dialed in very well. And that's even with the blade guide 6 inches above the table. I'm quite happy with it. I need to figure out how to extend the table and add an easier to use fence.
Looking great man! Let me know when I can bring over some 5inch diameter 4140 round stock I need whacked up into 3" long chunks. Need about a dozen of them.
I've got a nice 20" chop saw that'll do that for you jason, alas I think shipping would kill the deal. Horizontal bandsaw and lubricant, go have a smoke, scratch your arse, kick next doors dog then come back .....
