metalworking pillar drill experiences

[routercnc]

Final bits of the drill press table finished.

CNC machined 3off mini spoil board to go in the pocket in the middle of the table. Missed a trick here and should have offset the pocket to one side or fore/aft of the drilling point. Then you can rotate the mini spoil board around 90 degrees and get a fresh surface. Oh well.

Here it is in position. Took a guess and made it 59.7 x 59.7 (for a 60 x 60 pocket) and it is a nice gentle fit which should stay in place:


Then after thinking about different options I finally decided to drill and tap into the main table and just bolt it on with 2 M8 bolts. You can see them poking through on the underside. I made the holes in the wooden table a fairly tight fit on the bolts to achieve a bit of alignment when it is fitted and removed, but it's not that critical. By moving and rotating the table I was able to use the pillar drill to make these 2 holes, do the tapping (motor off), and counterboring. I used the DRO to sink each cap head exactly 10mm - very pleased with how that all works.


I've been thinking about another 'problem' that happens on pillar drills. When you move the table up and down it almost certainly moves out of alignment with the centre of the drill. This is fine if you are just setting up for the first job, but if you want to do multiple holes in the same place for different reasons e.g. centre drill, then clearance, then counterbore, then tap, you sometimes need to move the table up and down to fit the short and long bits in the chuck and still have enough quill plunge to make the cut.
When I bolted this new table top on I got lucky / took a best guess at the height to set, and was able to do all the operations without moving the table, but this is not always the case. What do other people do?
I thought about adding a frame behind the machine with supported rails running vertically up either side of the column for the table to ride up and down on, preventing rotation.
I also thought about adding a laser pointer to the front of the table pointing straight down at a fixed mark on the base, then moving the table up, and knocking it back onto the mark again.
Any other ideas?

[Lee Roberts]

Final bits of the drill press table finished.

After I read about your mods I remembered I had some small box section kicking about, with that I found myself nocking something up for mine, I'd been meaning to do for awhile, it needs some paint and the end caps haven't turned up from the bay yet...

but can you "guess wadit'is yet" ?

The bottom/tray is is just some 1.5 mil ali sheet I had, it's pop riveted on.

.Me

[njhussey]

but can you "guess wadit'is yet" ?

It's a tea tray....

[magicniner]

It's a tea tray....

Belay that you swab!
It's a Grog Tray ;-)