I have a Rockwell radial drill press I've posted about before. I picked it up at an estate sale for $87.50 - not a steal, but it did come with about 20 lbs of assorted drill bits, reamers and other tooling. It's definitely light duty, intended for woodworking - low speed is 750 rpm. I added an intermediate pulley to lower its range, which also raised the top speed. Now it's about 100 to 5000 rpm.
All sensible, but then I decided I didn't like the belt guard. It's just too plastic.
I liked the looks of the older cast iron guards, so I set about looking for one.
I found this one on eBay for about $50 w/shipping. I know. Ridiculous. But, I like the look - it reminds me of the monster's head in "Alien".
Of course, it mounts to the dp it came on in a different way from this one, so I made a mounting bracket. I started with a heavy ~1/8" piece of salvaged angle. A little cutting and bending matched it to the shape of the dp. Welding on some 1/8" flat created the flange to fiit into the groove on the dp. I'm not a great welder, but grinding v's and 80 amps with a 3/32 7014 rod got me enough penetration to grind the welds flat, just for the sake of appearance.
Now, I've got to strip and repaint it. I found a good match for the original gray: Rustoleum Painter's Touch Winter Gray. It's a gloss paint, but shouldn't look too slick on the rough cast iron. That's kind of a lot of gray, kind of drab. Maybe I'll add racing stripes.
Then, there's refurbishing the badge. I have a trick, but haven't tried it with color. Will report if it works!
Going to all this effort and expense for a modest little drill press is pretty ridiculous, but there might be a practical advantage too. I've always wanted to have an up-front bump-off switch, and maybe, just maybe, there will be room to mount one inside the guard without hitting the pulleys. We'll see.
All sensible, but then I decided I didn't like the belt guard. It's just too plastic.
I liked the looks of the older cast iron guards, so I set about looking for one.
I found this one on eBay for about $50 w/shipping. I know. Ridiculous. But, I like the look - it reminds me of the monster's head in "Alien".
Of course, it mounts to the dp it came on in a different way from this one, so I made a mounting bracket. I started with a heavy ~1/8" piece of salvaged angle. A little cutting and bending matched it to the shape of the dp. Welding on some 1/8" flat created the flange to fiit into the groove on the dp. I'm not a great welder, but grinding v's and 80 amps with a 3/32 7014 rod got me enough penetration to grind the welds flat, just for the sake of appearance.
Now, I've got to strip and repaint it. I found a good match for the original gray: Rustoleum Painter's Touch Winter Gray. It's a gloss paint, but shouldn't look too slick on the rough cast iron. That's kind of a lot of gray, kind of drab. Maybe I'll add racing stripes.
Then, there's refurbishing the badge. I have a trick, but haven't tried it with color. Will report if it works!
Going to all this effort and expense for a modest little drill press is pretty ridiculous, but there might be a practical advantage too. I've always wanted to have an up-front bump-off switch, and maybe, just maybe, there will be room to mount one inside the guard without hitting the pulleys. We'll see.
