Wilton Strands 25" Gear Head Drill Press

[FrostBite]

This drill press was left behind by a vinyl company that previously occupied my company's new building. They had no way to unload the machine at their storage facility and so it was tucked away against the wall until they could find a buyer. After finding the contact information for the owner I called him and he informed me the machine was used to mill slots in various vinyl pieces and was fairly babied as they had a Bridgeport for any serious milling. After inspecting the machine and measuring the spindle end play and run out I called the previous owner back to negotiate a price and became the machines new owner.

Loading was made easy by the forklift/boom combo and the press made the 10 mile ride home no problem with the help of some straps and scraps of 2x4.

Unloading proved to be slightly more difficult as my shop only has 9ft ceilings and the press is about 6ft tall. This didn't leave enough room for the backhoe. Once I finangled the press as far onto the floor as I could used my engine hoist to take over lifting duties. Turns out Harbor Freight didn't have this specific task in mind when they designed their POS. By tilting the drill I was able to use the hoist along with a floor jack to roll/drag/scoot/curse the thing to the middle of the floor.

I have no photos of the rolling/dragging/scooting/cursing phase of the operation as I was too busy with the cursing aspect of the job. Once in the middle of the floor I put the 1/3HP Craftsman beside it for comparison. On the left old and busted, on the right the new hotness.

The research I did before I bought the thing shows that it was originally made in Sweden by Strands and imported by Wilton. The XY table is made by Demanders, another Swedish company. It has a 2 speed forward/reverse motor with 4 different gear ratios in the head, 4 power feed speeds and a hair over 5" of quill travel. Both the head and the table crank up and down the column. The motor is rated for 2.5/3HPand it will turn a 1 1/2" drill bit using the hand feed.

So far I've rearranged my shop to make room for the drill and the phase converter I'm building for it, and I disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled all 200 lbs of the XY table. My next step will be to crack open the head and relube everything. I will wait til I have a proper shop before I completely overhaul and repaint the thing.

If anyone has information about these drills I am all ears.

 

[blazemaster83]

That is a very nice drill! The xy table sure is useful. Nice pickup!

 

[darkk]

I'd love to own a mill/drill setup like that. Good score.

 

[FrostBite]

Thanks! It definitely beats using the old Craftsman.

 

[F-117HWK]

On the left old and busted, on the right the new hotness.

When I read that I about fell out of my chair laughing. Whether or not you were actually going for the Men in Black reference I dont know

Nice find for sure. How much abouts did the entire thing weigh?

 

[A_Pmech]

Welcome!

Strands makes a nice machine. Clean it up and it should serve you well for a long time.

Bwaahahahahaha I love it when a cheap little drill press is put up against some real iron.

 

[FrostBite]

I thought it was an amusing picture. I lusted after an Arboga radial with a 2ft arm on eBay but it was 3 times the price of this one and in NYC.

 

[FrostBite]

When I read that I about fell out of my chair laughing. Whether or not you were actually going for the Men in Black reference I dont know

Nice find for sure. How much abouts did the entire thing weigh?

The shipping weight is listed at 800 lbs when equipped with the standard table. I don't believe it weighs quite that much though as I could walk it by hand into its final position.

And I'm glad someone found my MIB reference funny.

 

[jabberwoki]

Nice so what was the $damage?

 

[FrostBite]

I got out for about what Craftsman's largest drill press costs. I'm fairly happy with it since their isn't much in the way of machine tool selection in BFE S. Georgia.

I do have a question; The machine uses a 24v step down transformer for the controls and the machine light. Where does one find a 24v 25w bulb with what appears to be a candelabra base?

 

[FrostBite]

I am working up a McMaster Carr order to replace several broken, mostly cosmetic items on the machine. These are a new fine feed handwheel, new handles for the table handwheels, a new adjustable gib lock screw, and a new crank for the head raising mechanism. The fine feed handwheel is broken as the pictures show and is mounted on a 13MM shaft; I have been unsuccessful in finding a handwheel with a 13MM bore so I will just buy a smaller one and drill out the hole. The table handwheels are cast aluminum and the threads for the rotating handles have pulled out. I believe this to be the result of loose threads; the flats for tightening the threaded portion are only about .125" so a regular open ended wrench is too wide to fit. The current handles use 8MM studs, the replacements with have 10MM studs to account for having to drill out the holeThe gib lock for the X axis of the table was missing its indexable handle and McMaster seems to have an exact match to the existing one. Finally the crank to raise the head is broken near the end, so it may have to stay broken as I would assume a repacement, if still available would cost more than I am willing to spend.

 

[FrostBite]

 

[A_Pmech]

The head elevating crank looks easy enough to fabricate.

 

[FrostBite]

You are correct, a piece of round stock with some 1/4" flat for the "arm" would fix me right up. I really wish I had a lathe to turn a new handle, but alas I have no room for one. The shop is 19' x 29' and I use it to work on my '83 crew cab long bed C20, which is 21' so space is at a premium unfortunately.

I'd been working on making a set of motor mounts to put the 8.1L, visible in the background, between the frame rails, but found the press and had to drag the truck out to make room to get the machine to the back wall. The drill press also necessitated a rearranging of several storage shelves.

This is the offending vehicle before I started tearing it down; I should have decided to rebuild a Suzuki Samurai instead.

The plans are to put in the 8.1L, a manual ****** swap, a 4 wheel drive conversion with a 4 link front, and a slight lift.

 

[FrostBite]

In preparation for a set of custom drive flange I need to make, I finally mustered up my order from McMaster to freshen up the drill. Parts ordered were a new fine feed hand wheel, new gib lock screws, and new handles for the XY table. Old on top, new on bottom.

The handle had a blank hub that needed opened up to 13mm; 33/64 was close enough.

No pictures of the handles or gib locks though. I also managed to remove the collar from the bottom of the spindle which serves the same purpose as a draw bar on a Bridgeport. It took a pair of 16" slip joint pliers before it finally let go.

Still no luck on finding a light bulb.

 

[1982fxr]

Great write up. Was that the only company that made those old Wilton's?

 

[oldldh]

Nice find...

 

[FrostBite]

Great write up. Was that the only company that made those old Wilton's?

Nice find...

Thanks! As far as I know, Wilton was the only importer, but Arboga, Strands, and Solberga all made very similar machines.

I managed to get the one of the drive flanges mentioned in my previous post knocked out and was very happy with the results. I adapted the spindles from a GM 14 Bolt rear axle onto a set of 2.5 ton military axles so that I could run 8 x 6.5" wheels with wheel brakes versus the pinion brakes commonly seen with Rockwell swaps.

The spindles were machined on a South Bend 9" I picked up last September for a press fit and then preheated and welded. The preheat was for the cast steel Rockwell spindles; the internet said to heat to ~400* and slow cool.

My state of the art heat treating oven. Available at Walmart.

The 14 Bolt shafts are 1.510" IIRC and the Rockwell's are 1.625 at the splines so the 14 Bolt portion of the spindle had to be openned up slightly to allow the shaft to pass through.

The actual drive flanges started out as a chunk of 4.5" OD 4140. The HF band saw took about an hour per cut.

The pilot hole was opened up to 1.625 (the biggest bit I had access to) on the drill press (85 rpm and 0.004"/r),bored to 2.374 on the lathe, and returned to the drill press to have the bolt pattern (8 on 3.565") drilled.

Swapping between the center drill, the pilot drill, the drill for the through hole, and the counter bore took a while to get all 8 holes. It was also the first time I had done anything similar to this so I'm sure that really added the time on. But all 8 bolts went in no problem so I was very excited/relieved.

After checking to see that the part would bolt up and wasn't wasted, I returned it to the lathe to cut the outside profile.

Next the splined slug which I cut out of the stock Rockwell flange was pressed in and welded.

After turning the weld down and squirting a little Rustoleum on it.

I was very pleased with the results and I hope the next 3 go as smoothly.

 

[lametec]

I do have a question; The machine uses a 24v step down transformer for the controls and the machine light. Where does one find a 24v 25w bulb with what appears to be a candelabra base?

Bringing it back from the dead..

I recently purchased the same type of drill press, and my bulb was out as well.

It's available online for $37, but that's just too much. So I bought one of each of these:

MR11 MR16 base Socket

UltraX Xenon XJ 20W Clear BiPin G4 Base bulb

Then I removed all the glass from the base of the original bulb, and epoxied the new base into it. The fit is near perfect. The wires were soldered to the old base just like the original bulb was.

Then it was a matter of screwing the new adapter into the socket on the press, and inserting the bulb into the adapter. Voila! More light than stock, using less power. And all for under $4.

No pics, as I didn't take any, but picture this with the threaded base instead: