michaelwolson
Well-known member
I figured I should finally show the stuff I have been working on fixing/restoring. Maybe not original colors and such but they should all work well and look decent.
So a few weeks ago I saw two rusty old drill presses on Craiglist which I thought to be Craftsman 150’s. One of them a benchtop and one of them a floor model. The floor model was listed at $100 and the benchtop at $60. I had been searching for a good floor model for quite some time and even though it was way more than I wanted to pay for either I shot the seller an email. Since it was all the way in Livermore and I didn’t want to fight commute traffic I told him I would buy them both and pick them up that weekend. If he wanted to sell them before that, I would completely understand. The seller was great though and said since I was the first person to email him he would essentially wait a week and sell them to me.
He actually had work so he just left them covered up with a tarp outside of his garage and I left the cash in his mailbox. Btw this is very odd for 90% of the Bay Area... I noticed that the benchtop model was TINY and yet still weighed a ton.
I believe I got a Craftsman 80 benchtop and a model 100 floor standing both from the mid 1940’s would be my guess.
Serials and reprints:
103.23140 - Floor Standing
http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/detail.aspx?id=3117
103.23100 - Bench Top
http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/detail.aspx?id=2997
I decided to start on the 103.23100 first. It was rusty but actually not too bad.
Got it broken apart fairly quickly. No actual damage and it was only missing the top cap, steel disc, one of the retaining screws, and leather disc that hold the handle, and the handle. I bought a new handle and fabricated all the other missing pieces.
Started polishing up the small parts. Just used a wire wheel and polishing disc on the bench grinder.
The girlfriend washed and then wirewheeled the body and bases down to bare metal while I was work so I came home and primered and then painted them. Not the original color but I have a thing for old craftsman tools in gold.
Here’s a shot of the dunlap motor that came with it. It worked well but was dirty and had a ton of exposed/broken wiring inside. Definitely an accident waiting to happen.
Broke it down into it’s important pieces. Not shown is where I fixed all the wiring issues with heatshrink/new connectors.
So a few weeks ago I saw two rusty old drill presses on Craiglist which I thought to be Craftsman 150’s. One of them a benchtop and one of them a floor model. The floor model was listed at $100 and the benchtop at $60. I had been searching for a good floor model for quite some time and even though it was way more than I wanted to pay for either I shot the seller an email. Since it was all the way in Livermore and I didn’t want to fight commute traffic I told him I would buy them both and pick them up that weekend. If he wanted to sell them before that, I would completely understand. The seller was great though and said since I was the first person to email him he would essentially wait a week and sell them to me.
He actually had work so he just left them covered up with a tarp outside of his garage and I left the cash in his mailbox. Btw this is very odd for 90% of the Bay Area... I noticed that the benchtop model was TINY and yet still weighed a ton.
I believe I got a Craftsman 80 benchtop and a model 100 floor standing both from the mid 1940’s would be my guess.
Serials and reprints:
103.23140 - Floor Standing
http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/detail.aspx?id=3117
103.23100 - Bench Top
http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/detail.aspx?id=2997
I decided to start on the 103.23100 first. It was rusty but actually not too bad.
Got it broken apart fairly quickly. No actual damage and it was only missing the top cap, steel disc, one of the retaining screws, and leather disc that hold the handle, and the handle. I bought a new handle and fabricated all the other missing pieces.
Started polishing up the small parts. Just used a wire wheel and polishing disc on the bench grinder.
The girlfriend washed and then wirewheeled the body and bases down to bare metal while I was work so I came home and primered and then painted them. Not the original color but I have a thing for old craftsman tools in gold.
Here’s a shot of the dunlap motor that came with it. It worked well but was dirty and had a ton of exposed/broken wiring inside. Definitely an accident waiting to happen.
Broke it down into it’s important pieces. Not shown is where I fixed all the wiring issues with heatshrink/new connectors.
