Drill Press 6

 

Having cleaned all the castings of old crap, and with the 'wrinkle' finish paint in hand I set about making everything look good.
First I primed the base with red oxide. The joint fix seemed to good to be true. It didn't even notice.


Now, the finish I wanted used to be called 'crinkle', here's an example from and old Vero stand. You can see that it has a 'matt' appearance due to the tiny wrinkles in the paint surface. This was a standard finish on machine castings, especially pig iron ones.


I had bought 'Hycote' wrinkle black finish paint. I won't say it's total crap, but the instructions are bloody awful and it took the better part of an entire day to get anything like a wrinkle finish.
The instructions call for two coats ten minutes apart, then a heavy coat 4 hours later. Even after the first two coats I knew it was poor. The finish had a high gloss and very little 'wrinkle'. Damn.


After much fucking around, I worked out that the process actually calls for 3 or 4 VERY light coats to preserve the wrinkle. I ended up with the best finish I could get and decided to have done with it.


..... and the base casting ...


Now I started re-assembly. I had cleaned out the repaired base thread and the pillar went in without incident. However, the damage has meant that there is an angle on the pillar. As long as the table is perpendicular to the spindle we should be OK. Starting to look like the effort may be worth it in the end.




Next came a test fit of the quill and spindle prior to resetting that pesky taper pin.


I reamed out the pinion gear with a 1/8" hand taper reamer and turned up an aluminium taper pin.


After re-assembly the quill movement is smooth and clean. The drill is starting to look really nice now. However, one design flaw has come to light. No return spring. Hmm, maybe a Delrin washer on the outside bolt of the quill will stop it from dropping to the bottom of it's travel without notice!
I am also now convinced that the motor mount is all wrong. I think this is a small 'camelback' design drill and should have two small pulleys on the top casting with the motor mounted behind the base. I will investigate further.
here's the drill as it now stands. The arms need polishing and ball handles fitting, then it's down to the motor to get it all running.