My New Drill Press (Rebuild Required)

The Offer

One of the neat things about internet message boards are the interesting people you meet. Back in February, I received a private message here on Garage Journal from a member who has asked to remain nameless. He said that he had read my DoAll rebuild and wanted to know if I was interested in a broken Cincinnati Bickford 3' x 9" Super Service radial drill in need of a new home. Certainly! I said.

During a later telephone conversation the GJ member stated that it had a broken quill feed mechanism and cracked spindle housing, but the machine was otherwise intact and complete. He told me that he purchased the machine several years ago off Ebay and later found it was not in operable condition. After making this determination, he purchased a second radial drill, exactly the same as the broken machine, but in excellent condition. Thus, the broken machine was just taking up valuable shop space and he would rather see it put to use than scrapped.

The GJ member was nice enough to take a number of photos of the machine internals so I could make a decision as to what it would take to repair. I determined it would require extensive, but not unapproachable repairs. Even though the GJ member lives quite a long distance from me, he offered the machine and delivery for free! Obviously, this would make it easier to bear the cost associated with repairing the machine.

We reached an agreement that:

1) He would deliver the machine to me for free on the understanding that I would make an effort to rebuild the machine as I did with the my DoAll band saw.

2) I would post the rebuild here on Garage Journal.

3) If the drill turned out to be irreparable, I could use the drill as a parts machine or worst case scrap the machine.

4) I would not reveal the member's identity.

5) The least I could do was offer to pay for his fuel and take him out for a good lunch. He agreed to lunch, but refused to accept payment for his fuel!

With an agreement reached, we waited for better weather and that brings us to today!

Delivery

Around noon today, the GJ member showed up with about 2.5 tons of new iron for my shop:



Here it is after removing it from the truck:



A photo with me for a scale reference. Yes, it's true, I never smile for photos.



Back side of the machine:



A cool lubrication data plate on the machine:



A photo of the head:



The drive end:



Some specs on the machine:

Catalog Size: 3' arm by 9" column
Weight: About 4,000 lbs +-
Power: 3HP
Spindle: #4 Morse Taper
Spindle Speeds: 75 RPM to 1,500 RPM.
Rated capacity: 2" in iron
Year Built: Unknown, I can't find the serial number, but suspect 40's or 50's.

The Damage

The machine has several problems, the worst of which is internal to the head. Sometime in the not too distant past the machine was owned by a person or people who have no business owning machine tools, as the top of the box table screams:



One thing about machine tools, especially old ones, is the power feed overrun stops tend to be unreliable. In this case, somebody extended the machine's quill to almost full travel, then engaged the power feed. Eventually, the quill fed to the end of its travel and the feed pinion jammed on the end of the quill rack. The resulting forces broke the spindle housing inside the main head casting as shown here:



A repair was effected and the machine was put back into use. However, the quill mechanism is extremely tight and binds once per revolution of the feed pinion as it has a bent tooth, the red one in this photo.



Finally, the column is heavily scored. This is fairly common for radials of this age:



While the machine will be a challenging rebuild, thus far I can't find anything which is damaged so much that it is beyond my capabilities to properly repair. Of course, that could change once I get into the machine.

Rebuilding this machine offers a few interesting opportunities, including my first full restoration of a machine's geometry and a complete spindle and quill rebuild. I have already formulated repairs for the machine spindle and the column which will make the machine perform better than new.

While these extensive repairs would not be financially possible if I purchased a machine in this condition, the fact that the machine was given to me free of charge makes this rebuild a viable project. Other American-made radial drills of this size are available. However, many suffer the same or similar damage as this machine and cost substantially more than scrap value. Newer American-made radial drills are outside my budget.

It is my intent to rebuild this machine to as-new condition, barring any fatal flaws which I have not yet uncovered. Failing that, this was a very common machine, little changed from the 1940's. It could be used to supply parts for a machine in better condition.

A version of this machine is still built-to-order by Giddings and Lewis who now owns the Bickford division of Cincinnati at a new cost of around $40,000. I expect to end up with an as-new machine for substantially less.

Subscribed

You're a glutton for punishment

Planning on drilling big holes ?

Elroy wants to know if you could have picked out a machine any bigger

You are making me feel better about my early 70's 15" Delta drill press rebuild project already.

Thank you (and another member) for sharing the details.

John ,
Once again , too cool ! The data plate on its own is really neat. What are radial drills typically used to machine ? Really looking forward to seeing the rebuild on this. !


Craig.

Interesting thread.

Subscribed, I want to see this baby making holes

How tall are you?
you look really small by the side of the drill press! LOL

What a beautiful looking machine John!!

Looking forward to your progress!

WOW, that thing's a BEAST!

What are radial drills typically used to machine ?

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Radial drills are just big drill presses where the spindle head can move in and out on the arm and the arm can pivot on the column. This allows large castings and plate to be placed on the table and the drill moved to where the hole is needed.

jack vines

Thanks for starting another interesting thread. It's another chance to learn something I know nothing about. Good Luck!
Craig

John,

That is a cute little drill press, I have been looking for a bigger radial for the past few months. How is the Series II coming along?

Steve

Yojinbo said:

You are making me feel better about my early 70's 15" Delta drill press rebuild project already.

Click to expand...

Old machines are almost always worth rebuilding.

Amitygravel said:

What are radial drills typically used to machine ? Really looking forward to seeing the rebuild on this. !

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Hi Craig,

Radial drills are heavy drill presses with a ***********. They're designed primarily for drilling big holes in big parts. Rather than moving the part under the drill, the part is left stationary and the drill head is traversed and swung into position over the part. This is much easier than moving the part as it may be clamped down to resist the torque of a large drill, or it could be too heavy to move without the assistance of a forklift

Radials can also be used for align boring parts with the aid of special fixtures. The American Tool Works pioneered this production method for making their line of radial drills and lathes.

Unlike common drill presses, most radial drills are also set up for tapping. This particular radial has a tapping control lever, which makes tapping holes of all sizes very easy.

Finally, larger radials are capable of thread boring. These machines have spindle feeds that accurately match the lead of standard threads, making it possible to cut large threads by boring, where a tap would be too expensive, too large or otherwise inappropriate.

Craftman said:

How tall are you?

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Not very.



The machine is about 6' 8" to the top of the column. With the arm fully raised I think the machine is about 8' tall.

Steve in SoCal said:

John,

That is a cute little drill press, I have been looking for a bigger radial for the past few months. How is the Series II coming along?

Steve

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Hi Steve,

Aye, it is a cutie! I had been looking for a machine about this size as it is the biggest I can fit under my concrete door beam without getting "creative" with the rigging. As I told the GJ member, he offered exactly what I was looking for at about the perfect time! Not often THAT happens!

I've been too busy using the Series II to do any work on it! I may have to buy another mill to relieve the Series II long enough to do the rebuild. I do have the auto lube pump pulled off and apart for cleaning and repair. Will probably add it to the thread soon.

What a project! Subscribed to see all the progress.

Subscribed.
I love this stuff.

Check your PM's

This is going to be an awesome thread.

Wait, this is how I ended up here in the first place...

That ol machine couldnt be in better hands.

I too love these kind of threads. They are some of my favorite.

However,

The biggest problem with these kind of topics is that the main discussion is too heavily cluttered with comments and gratuitous posts; sort of like the big topic about the 1930s Auto Shop restoration.

What I propose is to have a thread like this in two formats: a condensed body thread and the conventional format where anything posted is visible. The condensed thread would be primarily from the O.P. as well as some light questions; comments or suggestions from the spectators with subsequent replies and answers as a discussion.

The other format would be what we do now; an initial post and all kinds of come-what-may **** like:

Subscribing
Good Job
You ****

And all sorts of these type of messages; meanwhile another edition would exist with actual "meat" of the topic.

Adam

old salvage said:

That ol machine couldnt be in better hands.

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Mine perhaps...

All kidding aside, I saw this machine in person. It is in serious need of John's services. It got a lucky break ending up in his possession as most people would scrap it.

I'm not sure if there is an efficient way to do that. It would involve a mod either trimming this version of the thread to create a new, content-only thread, or a mod locking and unlocking a thread every time the OP wanted to make a post. I devote a lot of time to doing stuff here, but I'm not necessarily looking for more punishment. Let me think about it.

This site isn't a technical manual, it's a community of enthusiasts, so I've always just accepted that banter will be a part of restoration project threads.

I do understand your point, though.

Adam McLaughlin said:

I too love these kind of threads. They are some of my favorite.

However,

The biggest problem with these kind of topics is that the main discussion is too heavily cluttered with comments and gratuitous posts; sort of like the big topic about the 1930s Auto Shop restoration.

What I propose is to have a thread like this in two formats: a condensed body thread and the conventional format where anything posted is visible. The condensed thread would be primarily from the O.P. as well as some light questions; comments or suggestions from the spectators with subsequent replies and answers as a discussion.

The other format would be what we do now; an initial post and all kinds of come-what-may **** like:

Subscribing
Good Job
You ****

And all sorts of these type of messages; meanwhile another edition would exist with actual "meat" of the topic.

Adam

Click to expand...

op could just edit his op.

mossyboy6 said:

op could just edit his op.

Click to expand...

Andy and aunt bee are the only ones that op will answer to.

mossyboy6 said:

op could just edit his op.

Click to expand...

You mean make all replies to his first post, and then the rest of the thread would be a stream of comments?

mossyboy6 said:

op could just edit his op.

Click to expand...

The OP can only be so long though.

mjozefow said:

Mine perhaps...

Click to expand...

If you can pick it up and put it in your trucklet, you can have it.

Bull said:

This site isn't a technical manual, it's a community of enthusiasts, so I've always just accepted that banter will be a part of restoration project threads.

Click to expand...

I'm with Bull on this. I enjoy reading the comments from others as I make posts on the current progress.

However, Bolster asked me a while back if I would condense the DoAll rebuild into a PDF file. I'm working on that and will eventually post it on my website, which is under way now.

I'll do the same thing with the drill rebuild. That way, a nice (although awesomely large) PDF file will be available for download in several sections which will be free of commentary and contain lots of additional photos and info.

I think that's the best way to cover both aspects. I've hit the word count limit of the forum several times with single posts in the DoAll thread. No way could I get an entire rebuild into one post. The DoAll rebuild was around 650 photos too!

That is an amazing piece of machinery!

I can only dream that I had 1)the space, and 2)the knowledge and skill to restore something like this. Until then I will have to stick to my little bench top delta drill press that probably looks like a matchbox car if stuck next to your new toy! Honestly I doubt I would ever need something that big but I would love to have a bridgeport or similar mill to do milling, drilling, tapping and all the other stuff it can do.

I will be watching this one come along and hopefully learn something that will come in handy in the future! Someday I hope to find some decent old machinery and restore it like you do. Would love a nice bandsaw and lathe to start with. Someday, until then I'll keep dreaming and watching your progress! Good luck and thanks to the donor that was nice enough to even deliver it, just wanting it in good hands instead of going to the scrap yard. Most people don't care enough about quality machinery to want to see it put to use again instead of retired.

I'm looking forward to this! You are a Craftsman in the true sense of the term.

Steve

holy ****! this will be fun to watch, good luck..

AP Mech - the stuff you do/post is just great! Looking forward to learning a bunch more from this one (already have!)

Subscribed.

Speechless!

I'll be following for sure.

Got it all restored yet?

Can you still buy cutting heads or tooling for this machine?

Thanks guys!

dude67 said:

Can you still buy cutting heads or tooling for this machine?

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Large twist drills, you mean? They're readily available, although the price is rather shocking.

I did a little work to the machine last night to get it in running shape. I wanted to get an idea of how it currently runs BEFORE I start tearing it down. This can make it easier to spot certain problems.

An overall view of its current position, roughly where I intend to grout it in after the rebuild:



Another view of that "Holy" box table. I scraped most of the **** off the machine base and inspected it before temporarily mounting the box table. The base appears to be drill zit free, unlike the box table!



The first surprise was the control transformer was wired for 440V on the secondary side and wired for 220V on the primary side. I discovered this rather quickly because the machine would not start, but the contactors made a buzzing sound when I pushed the start button. The control circuit was only getting 72V, not enough to close the contactors. A little re-wiring solved that problem:



I figured I had better check to see how the motor was wired and I got another surprise here. There are only three wires coming out of the motor! This means it is not a multi-voltage motor. Considering the "480V" sticker on the control cabinet, this had me a little worried!



I figured I had better check the motor tag before proceeding any further. After cleaning it off with Scotch Brite I was able to read most of the data, which is very lightly stamped into the plate:



If you look closely at the upper left corner you may be able to make out the "Volts" column. Stamped here is 220 / ***. The *** was stamped later by a motor repair shop to obliterate the second operating voltage, likely 440. This motor has been re-wound as a single-voltage motor, explaining the three leads instead of nine which would be found with a dual-voltage motor.

Once I was certain everything was set for the proper voltage, I went over the machine and filled the sight glasses to the middle with DTE Heavy. There's a sight glass on the column for the elevation gearbox:



And one on the head:



In addition, there are other points on the machine that must be filled until they overflow the fill port.

After I was certain everything was lubricated I hit the "start" button. My first impression was the primary reduction gear was WAILING! A dozen pumps of grease solved that. The primary reduction is MUCH quieter in reverse than forward, so it is probably well worn. The next thing I noticed was that the head is actually fairly quiet in all gears, no louder than any other radial this size. That's a good sign.

The power feed is essentially inoperative. I attempted to drill a 1" hole in a piece of steel flat and the power feed would not provide any feed force. In fact, I can stop the power feed from advancing by applying torque to the feed handle assembly. The feed pawls, feed ring or both must be stripped out.

The arm elevation controls are all screwed up and initially the arm was seized to the column. I had to do the equivalent of "popping the clutch" in a car to get the arm to begin climbing the column. Here's some "machine tool goo" for your viewing pleasure:



That about covers it for today. Having run the machine, I have a better idea of the scope of the project and its current condition. To conclude, here's a "Before" video of the machine running:

Radial Drill, as Received

So cool of you to share this project, thanks. Can't wait to see what's next!

Dave