Question about an old Dayton drill press

[wilkes704]

I inherited this dayton drill press.

I'm going to be replacing the cord and getting a decent vice for it. My question is, what is the piece above the drill for? It looks like it might be some sort of stabilizer for the drill, but it doesn't line up with the cap that locks the handle when the cap is on it.

 

[acdeucey]

The part you are wondering about is for holding a D-handle drill. There should be knurled bolts on each side that "pinch" the D handle to hold it in place. The bolts should have springs for tensioning them.

Don

 

[Outlawmws]

And that's not technically a drill press. The label clearly states that. Its better than using a large slow torquey drill by hand (they call them arm busters for a reason), but it won't really do real precise work. It's for construction level work.

What speed is the drill rotating? Most of those that size are pretty slow.