Rockwell 2 Gang Drill Press

[Roberts210]

I bought this D.P. in January from a flipper who got it at the auction of a machine shop that went out of business. The flipper put it on ebay, but claimed to know nothing about it. I asked several times what voltage the motors were, but he didn't know how to find out. His pictures were poor, but it had 3-phase wiring boxes mounted to the legs. He'd listed it at $350. I asked 3 or 4 questions about it, then decided not to get it. But he offered it to me at $285 and I bit.

Turned out the machine shop had put 1140 RPM 1-phase motors on it! RPM's are 160 to 3,000. 6 speeds, 6 inch depth of travel. 15-665 Rockwell heads.

When I was looking for a DP to replace my old one, I wanted 3 feed handles, I wanted RPM's low enough to drill in mild steel up to 3/4", and if possible I wanted a 2-gang DP on a cast iron table.

One of the chucks is a Rohm Spiro (West Germany) the other is Jacobs.
Table is 50 inches X 22 inches. It was originally a 4-gang DP, but two heads got be-headed at some point. There are holes of shame through the table. The machine shop ran coolant when they used this and I'm still trying to clean out all the gunk.

I'm making a run of 15 casement window strike plates out of 1/8th inch brass. I used a 1/4" carbide burr and ran it at 3,000 rpm to mill the slot, but I found it was easier and faster to do it by hand with an angle grinder & cutoff wheel.

I made the feed handles out of grade 5 bolts, with knobs from McMaster Carr. It came with the most pathetic excuses for feed handles I've ever seen... 4" handles with no knobs, nor provisions for knobs.

Damm, here's the OSHA guy sniffing around to see if I'm wearing steel-toed boots. Luckily he'll take bribes of tuna not to write me up. Lots of clean-up work still to be done.

 

[slowtwitch73]

That's a good deal....

 

[Provincial]

Good deal, if you have the room! They will earn their keep.

 

[lis2323]

Too cool. Good score[emoji481]


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Roberts210]

Thanks. I already love it. Gotta come up with a way to fill the holes of shame tho.

 

[macgee]

Roberts210.

Congrats on the score, you did very well and deserve a You ****! Yours has the extra heavy art deco legs, the table alone is worth more than what you paid. Interior designers love buying those as industrial art. Pretty common in my neck of the woods to see just the DP heads for those being sold alone.

I'm very jealous as I'm realizing more and more how nice it is to have a 2 gang, I'm alway having to change bits out and then go back to them; spot, drill, countersink....etc. Having it all on the same table makes it all that much better. Perfect example, I see you have a Zephyr microstop countersink on the left one. Also great when set up for two different on going projects allowing one DP to keep a set-up for a project while you can use the other for whatever.

Question: I cant tell in pics but do the heads have the adjustable hand crank lifts on the left side of them?

 

[slowtwitch73]

They make excellent fab/welding tables.

 

[Provincial]

They make excellent fab/welding tables.

Back in the 1970's a local shop scrapped out an old, large metal planer. The shop where I worked got the table from it and built angle iron legs that placed the top at a good working height. I made a great welding/fab table because it had hold-down points at close intervals, and, being cast iron, weld didn't stick to it. The only drawbacks were: first, it used an obsolete type of hold-downs, and second, it was so big it took up a lot of room. If I remember correctly, it was four feet wide and sixteen feet long!

 

[Roberts210]

Thanks guys. Thanks Macgee. Yes, that is a Zephyr microstop countersink. It really comes in handy.

In 2016 I had a chance to buy a 6-gang Delta DP, with 4 heads, all were 3-phase, for $150. The seller had a ****-load of machine tools in his garage and was in dire straits for some reason that I forget. But I had no way to move the 6-gang behemoth, and I passed on it. But I was able to take this 2-gang apart and move it by myself. I had a buddy to help me assemble it tho.

No hand cranks. The heads have the spring loaded raise/lower mechanism, which isn't too bad. I can move them up and down without too much work.

 

[cchamelin]

You’re lucky….looks like you got an OSHA guy that knows what he’s doing. Great grab on the DP too!

 

[Roberts210]

Thanks Cchamelin... yeah, the OSHA guy says he's gonna rat me out if I don't kick back a can of tuna every week. Beats a big fine tho.