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26" F.Barnes CO. Rockford Ill.

swatkins

Titanium
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Location
Navasota / Whitehall Texas
Drove over to Jasper Texas today to pick up a 26" W.F. Barnes Co.Camelback drill press.. I think its a W.F. but didn't have time to move the strap and make sure... Found it on Craig's list and made the 7 hour round trip to pick it up...

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I've looked around and found a history on the assorted Barnes companies but found little that had any pictures or information on this drill press..

Someone has crafted a "form fitting" 3/4" thick metal plate to hold an electric motor but that is long gone. So far I need a motor , drive belt from the motor to the lower cone and a small drive belt for the feed system. I removed parts of the feed system to protect it from damage while we hoisted it into the pickup but it looks to be all there and in decent shape. The base was coated in oil so I ran it through a carwash on the way home.

The only damage to the casting I could find was on the main column. You can see where someone welded up the casting with very nice welds.. In one of the pictures it looks like there is a crack above the welded area but I didn't see any cracking there when we loaded it...

Anyone have an idea for the size of electric motor needed to make this machine usefull again?
 
Anyone have an idea for the size of electric motor needed to make this machine usefull again?

Halsey's Handbook (Handbook for Machine Designers, Shop Men and Draftsmen - 1916) gives the following table

Drilling and Boring Machines
Motor A, B, or C
A = Adjustble speed shunt wound direct current
B = Constant speed shunt wound direct current
C = Squirrel cage induction motor - A gear box or cone-pulley arrangement must be used to obtain different speeds.

Sensitive drill up to 1/2 inch = 1/4 to 3/4
Upright drills, 12 to 20 inch = 1
Upright drills, 24 to 28 inch = 2
Upright drills, 30 to 32 inch = 3
Upright drills, 36 to 40 inch = 5
Upright drills, 50 to 60 inch = 5 to 7-1/2

Given that yours seems to have a "back gear" (planetary in the upper cone pulley) you may be able to get by with the smaller 1 hp motor.

I for some years used a 3/4 hp induction motor with a Royersford Excelsior 21" drill with back gear - but admittedly this setup was a little overdone at large holes - for that drill/motor the limit seemed to be 2" drill. But I didn't have much need for holes quite that large. Perhaps your need similar?

I've mentioned using this drill to drill 3" holes using a hole saw in locust fence posts - a decidedly different application. Use of the auto feed drill made this an effortless and pleasurable occupation.

Joe in NH
 
Given that yours seems to have a "back gear" (planetary in the upper cone pulley) you may be able to get by with the smaller 1 hp motor.

Joe in NH

Joe are you thinking the extra pulley on the top shaft is the back gear or some other part being the back gear?

The pulley in the middle of the upper shaft is the speed pulleys for the automatic feed. I removed most of those parts before lifting the machine with a strap.. Everything was in good shape and I didn't want to take a chance on breaking one of those castings...
 
Congrats on picking one of these awesome drills up!

I've got a restored 20 inch drill, there's a thread on it that may be helpful:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-and-history/barnes-20-inch-drill-press-restoration-pic-heavy-292331/?highlight=20+inch+barnes+drill+press

My drill has a 1.5 hp motor for comparison.

A word of caution - these drills are very top-heavy, and offset motor mounts can make them downright tippy. Plus they're short, so you may want to build a pedestal or stand for it to help all that. I like the motor mount behind or above the step pulley to reduce the footprint of the drill and to not put a twist on the base casting, which can be fragile. Mine was broke from a side-projecting motor mount. Likewise not good to "walk" them around on the casting.

Now that the cautions are out of the way, dig in and enjoy!
 
Joe are you thinking the extra pulley on the top shaft is the back gear or some other part being the back gear?

The pulley in the middle of the upper shaft is the speed pulleys for the automatic feed. I removed most of those parts before lifting the machine with a strap.. Everything was in good shape and I didn't want to take a chance on breaking one of those castings...

Unless the guts have been removed- can't tell from the photos- it appears to have the patented Barnes planetary back gear arrangement inside the upper cone pulley.

Andy
 
Anyone have an idea for the size of electric motor needed to make this machine usefull again?
they likely came with 2hp, mine has a 1/3 3ph and it doesn't bog before the flat belt slips and falls off

mine'll still spin a 2" drill with no pilot hole, happily
reversing switch mounted on the right side by the johnson bar handle makes quick reversing for tapping easy, too
 
Looks like all the gears are removed from the pulley... Wonder how hard it would be to find them or make new ones?

Your guess is as good as mine on the ease of finding them, but I'm thinking it won't be easy. The planetary has straight cut spur gears on little shafts with oil passages. Mostly lathe work but to make the housing with a bullnose will need a beefy lathe. There's a good pic of it in the link I included previously.
 
If its original function that you are after thats one thing but before you invest a ton of time keep in mind these old drills are S-L-O-W to be begin with since they were designed and built in the era of carbon steel twist drills. The 21" Royerford (which I'm more familiar with) had drills speeds in the range of 90 to 450 RPM in direct drive. That's about the same speeds as my 1970's Buffalo 22" in backgear! Food for thought.
 
The beefy lathe is not a problem. Having enough time to do everything I need to do is the problem...

I've been looking around for a motor and was thinking about getting a 3 HP, 3 phase motor and putting a VFD on it... That would give me infinite speed control but I don't know how much power that combo would have at slower speeds.
 
Congrats on picking one of these awesome drills up!

I've got a restored 20 inch drill, there's a thread on it that may be helpful:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-and-history/barnes-20-inch-drill-press-restoration-pic-heavy-292331/?highlight=20+inch+barnes+drill+press

My drill has a 1.5 hp motor for comparison.

A word of caution - these drills are very top-heavy, and offset motor mounts can make them downright tippy. Plus they're short, so you may want to build a pedestal or stand for it to help all that. I like the motor mount behind or above the step pulley to reduce the footprint of the drill and to not put a twist on the base casting, which can be fragile. Mine was broke from a side-projecting motor mount. Likewise not good to "walk" them around on the casting.

Now that the cautions are out of the way, dig in and enjoy!

Very nice job on that rebuild. I love your base and if I had the time I would duplicate it... BUT time is short around here. I was wondering if you had ever seen a base made out of structural pieces like I-beams.. I have some 8" I-beam that I was thinking of makeing a combination base and motor mount similar to yours..
 
I've been looking around for a motor and was thinking about getting a 3 HP, 3 phase motor and putting a VFD on it... That would give me infinite speed control but I don't know how much power that combo would have at slower speeds.
belt slippage is a big deal on my 20" champion, even in backgear and with only 1/3 hp
in direct, it'll shatter a 33/64 bit if you break through too quickly, so there is a good amount of torque there but there could be more.

I'm thinking on cutting the pullies on mine for a serpentine belt. IIRC an 8-rib from a 6.7 ford was close to the right size.
 
Only two problems I found with the castings are minor.

In this picture you can see the table elevation screw. The casting that holds the assembly to the column looks like it was broken. Also the place where that screw 's bottom is fixed to the column looks like it has made itself a bigger hole to live in.

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The column as also been repaired with what looks like a very professional welding repair.

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Just found a 1750 rpm, 3 phase, 3hp motor brand new for 140.00

Think I'll get it and then put a remote panel VFD on it for control. Without the back gear this setup should give me a better range of speeds and the 3 hp should give enough power....

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
 
Too bad the guts for your back gearing is gone. My 20" Silver is complete with power feed. When I got it there was a 1 HP single phase motor on it. I changed that and put a big old 1/2 HP on it. It will slip the belt before it would even begin to load down the motor. I can punch a 1" hole in a heavy steel plate using the power feed with the back gear and the press won't even grunt. The only thing I don't like about my press is that it only has a #3 MT. Wish it had a #4. I have a 3 HP on my 20" lathe and that seems a bit overkill. It used to work just fine with a 1 HP.
 

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Too bad the guts for your back gearing is gone. My 20" Silver is complete with power feed. When I got it there was a 1 HP single phase motor on it. I changed that and put a big old 1/2 HP on it. It will slip the belt before it would even begin to load down the motor. I can punch a 1" hole in a heavy steel plate using the power feed with the back gear and the press won't even grunt. The only thing I don't like about my press is that it only has a #3 MT. Wish it had a #4. I have a 3 HP on my 20" lathe and that seems a bit overkill. It used to work just fine with a 1 HP.
The machine would probably work well with a smaller motor... Just a cheap new 3 HP is the best motor I could find right now...

Picked it up this morning and am now trying to figure out how I'm going to mount it.. I'm thinking of making a raised platform for the machine and would like to mount the motor inline with the base but I think it will end up making the machine almost 2 foot longer. Right now the base of the machine is at 6 feet long and that's hard enough to find space for. What I'll probably do is fab up a base, using either 4x4, 3x4 or 8"I-beam, and incorporate a side mount for the motor on that base. That would take the stress off of the base casting and give me a wider footprint for stability and maybe heavy duty casters to move the drill around with .. Things have a habit of moving around in the shop, especially after the 22 foot long planer came to live here :)
 
What is the best wide belt to use on this thing?

The current belt is a deteriorating canvas type belt that probably had some sort of coating on it at some time. It was off the pulleys when I bought the machine and tonight I think I found out why.. It's too short to properly fit the steps on the pulleys!

IF you number the steps on the pulleys 1234 ,from left to right, the only way I can stretch the belt to fit is 3 on the top pulley and 2 on the bottom pulley. It also looks like they have ran it that way and the bottom pulley shaft has shifted to the front of the machine by about 1.5 inches to run closer to normal. To make the pulleys line up I will need to install a collar on the shaft to limit motion to the side and see about shifting the top pulley on it's shaft about an inch.. There is wear to the fork that used to engage the back gear and I think it came from the pulley rubbing on it.

Looking at leather belting I see that is going to cost about 25.00 a foot for a 3" wide 12' long belt. So I started looking at modern replacements.

What do you guys think about this belting from McMaster-Carr ? Super-Grip Rubber Flat Belting on this page.. Enough material with metal clips to make it will run just under 100.00 for the Super-Grip, 5 Ply, 0.213" Thick, 3" Wide.
 








 
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