I have a couple of drill presses, but i’m considering buying one of those little bench-mounted ones that cost about a hundred bucks to dedicate it to drilling endless quantities of 9/64″ crib board holes. These things seem like toys, but i’m wondering if anyone has one they like and if they think it would stand up to 60,000 quill advances/retreats without getting sloppy. It wouldn’t see any other use than this.
Colleen
Replies
Well, I've drilled thousands of holes with my Skil 8" bench top drill press. I did make a new post for it though to get about 2" of more clearance. I found a piece of pipe the right diameter and polished it up on my lathe. It has a 5 speed belt drive that I sure would like to change to a variable speed DC motor. Have the motor, but not the time to change it out.
Paid something like $100 for it at HD or Lowe's. Can't remember which store.
What I'd really like is a VERY high precision bench top drill press. But, there is a lot of difference between $100 and $1000!!!!!
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy
PlaneWood
Colleen
As yoiu know, I just got the 15" Ridgid 1550. I have had a 10" Ryobi for several years and it has preformed admirably. I was thinking of selling it, but I probaly wouldn't get more than $60 at the most. Will problay keep just for small projects and some metal drilling.
The new Ryobi DP100 is not the same. They added a rack and pinion, but it has a 3.6 amp motor. The old 100 has a 5.6 amp as their new 12" at $149. The machining is not as crisp and the general quality is also a step down. It's ok, but I was judging it against the old.
I returned a Detla 10" to get the Ryobi. The chuck wouldn't stay on and I can't stand that crooked plastic belt housing cover Delta puts on their shopmaster series. Just a personal thang. If it's not square, I gotta make it square or go nuts knowing it's not square. he.....
If you want to borrow the DP 100, I'll leave the shop light on. Only a several thousand mile drive to Atlanta. Or, if you decide to ride a horse, bring a big saddle-bag. BTW, watch out for boomerangs in my neighborhood. Seems like a lot have popped up with the kids recently. <G>
Happy New Year, Foxy...
sarge..jt
I have a $49.00 Harbor Freight unit, had to machine a new stop collar since the one it had was plastic, and broke the first time I used it.
I have used it for about 2 years, but no where close to the number of holes you speak of. It appears tight,little run out.
It looks the same as the $100 ones, but I have not seen if they have a metal stop collar or plastic.
Curt
Well, my year is off to a good start! I got an email from Forest Girl offering me the drill press she outgrew when she made her lumber rack, so i'm taking her up on her offer.
Jamie, let me know when you get email set up and i'll send you my addy for that and arrange payment. Or can you get email through the forum???
Thanks to all!
Splintie, I have your address from one of our earlier correspondences. Let me get it boxed up and weighed and then I can get an estimate for shipping. Will have my email up and running by tomorrow I'm sure, I'm just having too much fun playing tonight! ROFL, too cool.
PS: I don't suppose there's a business address nearby I could send it to? It would cost you less (UPS). Looking at MapQuest though, hard to imagine.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Good idea about a business address...send it to 1888 Metal Arts, 118 Main, Stevensville, MT 59870. That's the gallery where i did my little show, i'll let them know it's coming. If you want to just go ahead and ship, let me know total $$ and i will send a check tout de suite. If you want the check first, i'm cool with that, too. I've been thinking about getting one of these for the longest time...guess the stars were aligned...
Colleen
Uhhhhh, I think I can trust you on the check thing. Besides, I've got Sarge and ToolDoc as back-up, right? ROFL. I just bought a pre-owned Veritas router table top from one of our fellow Knotheads, paid via PayPal. Don'tcha just love cyber-shopping? Too cool. I'm really stoked on electronics this week!
I'll let you know when I get it shipped -- will shoot for Friday, since tomorrow's pretty booked.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Jamie: You can Always count on me.. if you need SARGE and myself out there I can always grab a quick flight on the MedEvac Helicopter at the Hospital and be there in two shakes of a lambs tail..<G> But IM sure your not going to have a problem with Splintie on the DP deal....
ToolDoc
Hey, we've got a landing spot right over at the fire station, a mere 300 yards or so from my house! Maybe you could drop in for the 4th of July parade next year!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Is the helicopter for me in case the check bounces!?!?!?!? Classy! Usually the guy just breaks my legs and leaves me...
I called in on my gallery friends and they are cool with delivery at their place. I'm looking forward to making some new jigs for the crib boards and talking to my computer guru about stepper motors again. He thought he might be able to make something that would advance the track each time a hole was drilled to position it for the next one. I read a "basic" manual on one, but it may as well have been in Finnish.
I can read a little Svenska if it'll help. Welllll, I guess not. Hah!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I'm thinking along the lines of a jig build on the same principle behind a finger joint jig, using a spring loaded detent and convert the drill to foot operation. Your hands would move the crib board and your foot would lower and raise the drill.
Great minds think alike? I rigged a foot pedal to the crank on the quill. The fence has a piece of paper taped onto it with the increments for the holes marked on it as vertical lines. The track (wood strip 7/8" wide) has a registration mark on it with a fine pen; wenge gets a strip of masking tape for a *line*. The horizontal line on the track is lined up with the vertical line on the fence by eye, which is extremely accurate and avoids the "walking" that can happen when successive cuts are based on the preceding ones. I can do about 8-10 sets an hour; employees can generally hit 7.75 sets reliably, meaning <2% error.
Even with two hands on the track wearing those rubber-drizzled, yellow gloves for traction, one's hands can get very tired. Also, i did some sort of damage to my wrist falling on it while chasing down a dog last fall, and lately by tripping on a client's step on their walkway and breaking my fall with it. (I saved the product, though!) So that's the main reason for getting a dedicated machine at this time, so i don't have to do a long stint of drilling to economize on set-up time. The stepper motor would be a bonus.
Quick sketch of what I envision
Now i see what you meant. It seems like it would require another hand or foot to release tension on the spring while moving it along with two hands, but it would have "objective" registration for each hole instead of being based on the one previously drilled. If you can figure out a way to add power advance to that instead of manual... <G>
I don't drill a whole board at once. I drill the laminations for the tracks before i glue those up between the other laminations so that if any holes go astray, i can toss out just a track instead of the whole shooting match.
I just tried to take a pic with my digital camera...time to recharge the batteries...
So modify the carriage to carry the hole lamination only.
I was thinking left hand to release spring, right hand to move carriage one tooth. The fence and registration teeth should allow precise positioning. A foot lever could also be used to release the spring if you need (or want) both hands to move the carriage.
A stepper motor driving the registration teeth and a second lowering the drill would automate the process - I think the combined actions are what constitute a milling machine <G>
I'd make the unit out of steel or aluminium, though a hard dense wood like lignum vitae or jarah should do.
Ian
Ja, i tried to justify a milling machine, but for about three or fours full days' work a year, i couldn't liberate the bucks. I used some big ones that could rotate a motor and were several feet in length as part of my college coursework...loved it, thepretty spirals!.. but that was many moons ago.
Colleen
Have modified the design somewhat. You could build this out of hardwood ply, thin hardwood or a mix of aluminium and wood or even steel plate. I'd lean toward making the carriage and index tooth out of aluminium and the rest wood. In use the frame is bolted (or clamped) to the drill's table, the carriage slides between parallel fences so it stays aligned, the teeth achieve the consistent hole spacing required, the fences mounted on the carriage (and the spacer block) allow precise alignment of the hole strip, the wedges lock the hole strip in place, and with a foot pedal to raise and lower the drill, two hands should be sufficient to move the carriage.
If decide to build it let me know
Ian
I'm a simple woman, Ian. I have a one-piece bathing suit so i don't misplace any of the parts. I got laser surgery on my eyeballs bec i could never find my glasses. Four wedges is three-and-a-half too many and i still don't see where this thing plugs in...? <G>
I love the ingenuity, however, and i am stealing the part of the idea where i tip over the spacer to pack out the track for the second row of holes. I used to do this on a Shopsmith in a horizontal position, lowering and raising the table to get the right spacing, so i was thinking of a carriage that slid toward and away form me on an auxiliary table on the DP to do the same thing. With a spacer, i have to be exact with the width of the track or the lines of holes will have varying amounts of space to the outside edge, but that's not very difficult to repeat.
Thanks, this has been fun!
OK, I'm dumb, but always willing to admit it -- what's a stepper motor?forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Stepper motors are the coolest thing since sliced bread! They are the key to (relatively) cheap robotics. This tutorial may not be the best one on the web. It was just the first one that Google found for me.
http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/step/
Edited to add a short summary. A stepper motor can be commanded to turn a fixed fraction of a revolution and then stay in that position as long as the power is on. Widely available motors range from 15 to 200 steps per revolution. At the low end of the robotics spectrum, the huge advantage of the stepper is that if you design in an adequate motor, you don't need any positional feedback, you can just trust that if you told it to move and gave it enough time to step and settle, it moved.
Edited 1/4/2003 3:16:08 PM ET by Uncle Dunc
Well, if the Google article was too long-winded, you're REALLY not going to like this, LOL!
I don't pretend to understand it well, but the idea is that you have a motor without brushes or commutator that acts on digital/electronic input. They can stop and start very quickly. They're used in computers a lot; a friend of mine who invents computer accesories for Macs told me about them.
If anyone else has a clearer explanation, please chime in.
Jamie: Glad to hear that you live so close to the fire station,always remember that your local fire company gang are the Best bunch of guys & Gals in the world..I have the pleasure of belonging to my local fire station for 27 years as a active member..you will never find a more loyal & helpfull group when the chips are down you can count on them... 4th of July.Hmmmm not sure I can make it.. what kind of beer & grub you serving..<G>....
Take Care Little Forest Buddy.. ToolDoc
Just haqnging out in the Snowy & Icy Pocono Mts....
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