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Antique Post Drill

lellon123

Plastic
Joined
Aug 9, 2017
I have obtained an antique drill. Looking for more information on it. It is stamped "Day Brothers" and appears to have been made in Philly, PA. There is a model 25 on it. Any help is much appreciated, thanks

Drill 1.jpg

Drill 2.jpg

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Really appreciate the reply. Those articles are fantastic.

Do not know much about these type of drills. Is there any market for them?

Not been able to find any other information that when you just sent, thinking I may have a rare find. Thoughts?
 
One market is blacksmiths working in historical village type situations. When working in full view of the public modern machinery is a no-no and even if a post drill is from a later era it is viewed as less of "cheating".
 
They do work pretty well even when the power is out.

I have one.... I forget if it was $5 or a "you want it, you take it".
 
Looks like your power down feed is missing. It would be a lever that would rub against a cam to make it go to and fro. Up top there is a notched "gear". A pawl would mesh with it and turn it one or more cogs to advance the quill downward. Some one may have a picture of one.
 
They're neat conversation peices, lots of companies made them and they're pretty common (read cheap) I used to keep mine set up for countersinking, very nice for that purpose, of course you can make holes with it, may take you a bit longer though.
 
The post drill in this thread is missing the "peck feed" mechanism. This provided an automatic downfeed when drilling. Figure that the person doing the drilling had one hand holding the work, and the other cranking. Unless there was another person present to help, the downfeed was going to be difficult for the person cranking and holding the work- unless he grew a third arm and hand.

The downfeed is advanced by means of a heavy screw thread. The handwheel with the crank is for returning the drill spindle to original position after a hole is drilled, or for bringing the drill down close to the work prior to starting drilling. A mechanism worked off the shaft with the hand crank to provide the automatic downfeed. This mechanism worked a linkage which caused a pawl to advance the wheel at the top of the drill. The wheel has screw threads cut in its hub, and when it turns, it brings the spindle up or down. The bevel gear and handwheel with the crank accomplish the same thing. When drilling with automatic feed, the turning of the hand crank causes the linkage to work the pawl. The pawl pushes against the ratchet teeth cut on the top face of the wheel (which also has a bevel gear for the hand-cranked feed).
The amount the pawl moves this ratchet wheel was usually adjustable on this type of post drill. This type of feed mechanism is sometimes referred to as a "peck feed", since it is similar to a chicken pecking at feed.

Without the feed mechanism, the drill is pretty limited in what it could be used for. I've got two (2) Champion post drills leaning in odd corners of my garage, and gave a larger one away some years ago. As was noted, these post drills are not particularly sought after by working blacksmiths or anyone else. Unless a person was re-creating an old blacksmith shop or similar, there is almost no demand for these post drills. Some few post drills were motorized by people who wanted to have a slow-speed drill press and did not require any kind of accuracy. I saw one large post drill in place in an auto and truck service garage years ago, with an electric motor belted up to run it. The fellow who owned that garage said they started as a country blacksmith shop, and when they got into auto and truck work, while they got rid of the forge, they kept the post drill in its motorized version, along with the anvil. They used the post drill for occasionally drilling larger diameter holes in work like farm implement parts or trailer hitch work. As many people who converted their post drills to motor drive did, a 3/4" geared drill chuck was added. Otherwise, this type of drill is limited to using drills with shanks turned to fit the "chuck" on the drill spindle, with a flat on the turned shanks for a set screw in the "chuck". Most people who wanted to use their post drills, particularly if they motorized them, added a drill chuck so any drill that fit in the chuck could be used.

About the only thing this particular post drill has going for it is the maker. There were several well known makers of blacksmithing tools and shop equipment:
Buffalo Forge, Champion Blower and Forge, and Canedy-Otto. A firm called "Russell" out of Massachusetts made a smaller amount of this same sort of blacksmith shop equipment. "Day" is a maker that is a new one on me. The style of the lettering on the casting has me thinking this may be an older post drill. It does have ball thrust bearings, so is not really old, however. I've seen post drills at blacksmithing events where they have a kind of flea market (aka "tailgate sales"). At the end of the event, the post drills usually went unsold, and the guys who lugged them to the sale would take any offer to avoid hauling them home again. 5 bucks is not too unrealistic an offer, particularly since the automatic feed is missing. A post drill in fine condition with the automatic feed might fetch 50 bucks if the right person with a hankering for doing things the old way came along.
 
I've used mine twice. Worked OK, feed is a little fast, Twice is about how many times I have used the Cole dril also. But those two times it was about the only way to do the job, so no issue there.
 
I have two mounted to walls that I use regularly. I am off-grid, have solar-derived elec power that sometimes runs a little short, and generators that I'd rather not start, so , for a few holes, the post drill is the perfect fit. Automatic downfeed provides the needed thrust for MUCH easier and more efficient drilling than possible with an eggbeater-type or breast drill.

I've often thought of modifying the table on one with clamps and-or chains to make a post drill substitute for a magnetic base drill....for jobs without electric power, or heavy drilling of wood or aluminum. Doing timber framing, I've wished for a 3/4" hole in places high enough off the ground that I do not want to be wrestling with a big electric drill

One of mine has a keyless 1/2" cap. chuck with a 1/2" shank permanently mounted in the original setscrew "chuck". The other I cut the original chuck off and threaded the spindle for a Jacobs threaded-back chuck (5/8-16UN, IIRC).

OP's looks much heavier than most I have seen, screw larger and frame deeper section to provide more thrust. Looks to have had back-gears also for slow speed.

Pretty sure I paid $25 for one of mine, and got the other free after (being the only one) expressing interest at a yard-sale.

Low "market value" due to low demand does not equate in my mind to low intrinsic value or throw-it-away. If I were within a hundred miles or two of the 250-pounder in NH, I'd be there.
 
Magnetic:

Is the feed on yours a good rate?

On the slowest setting, mine feeds way too much IMO, but it might be a normal amount. I don't know the amount per rev, but it seems high. I should figure out or measure the feeds.
 
Most, if not all, post drills have an adjustable feed rate using a stop screw on the feed arm that changes the number of teeth engaged on every cam revolution.

Bob
WB8NQW
 
Most, if not all, post drills have an adjustable feed rate using a stop screw on the feed arm that changes the number of teeth engaged on every cam revolution.

Bob
WB8NQW

Yes, I have it set to feed one click and it still seems too fast.
 
Years ago I bought a smallish post drill that was apparently unused. I cleaned it up, painted it with green Rustoleum to which I added some black paint from the same maker to make an ersatz British Racing Green. Bolted it to the center post of my house.

It's my go-to drill for holes around an inch in diameter, which I find are much easier to accomplish than with my half-inch bench drill press, even with that machine's after-market speed reduction pulleys. Yeah, it's hard, aerobic work, but there's no belt to slip.

One warning: Post drills have quite flimsy tables. You're 'sposed to drill a pilot hole so the downfeed doesn't have to push the non-cutting portions of the bit through the workpiece. I also clamp the workpiece, so I can use both arms to drive the drill.
While it doesn't have any differential backgear mechanism, there is a flywheel driven by a smallish pinion gear, so I can pull on the rim of the horizontal-shaft flywheel with my left hand to help my right hand, which is turning the adjustable-arm crank.

Also, the chuck never slips, as the drill uses a plain half-inch diameter, one-size-fits-all bit receptacle, and my assembled kit of Silver & Deming bits all have a flat for the set screw to lock the bit in place.

Keep on cranking !

George Langford
 
Mine shares a regular chuck with the Cole drill.

I'd expect most any post drill to handle a 1/4" drill in the solid. And, that is a good size for a 1" drill pilot.

Smaller than 1/4", not a great fit for the post drill. At least not for auto-feed. Still need to check the feed rate. Seems like it ought to be pretty slow, as in a few thou per rev. I'd use a pilot on 1", but didn't figure I needed to for 1/2", which is about the smallest "native" drill size for the "CBF" drill, but it seems to want one.

The big Clausing in the shop will handle up over an inch, so I have no real need to use the post drill that much. What the Clausing won't handle, I don't want to drill with the post drill anyway. Too long, too much work, need to get things done..
 
From the few times I've used hand-cranked post drills, I went with a 1/4" diameter pilot drill. Pushing a properly sharpened 1/4" drill thru A-36 structural steel with the "peck feed" on the post drill engaged was not hard work at all. I then stepped up, 3/8", then 1/2", and then 5/8".

I got one post drill from the son of its original owner/purchaser. A fellow named Hank was retiring from a mechanic's job on the NYC Watersheds in about 1986 or thereabouts. Hank called me to ask if I would be interested in some stuff he had left from his father's blacksmith shop. Hanks's father had a blacksmith shop in Croton Falls, NY. It closed in 1952 when Hank's father died. According to Hank the shop never had electricity. Hank sold me a Canedy-Otto farrier's forge which his father had mounted on a Model A truck chassis. With it, he sold me a Peter Wright anvil and a Champion Blower and Forge post drill, and some other odds and ends loaded into wood boxes from welding flux and toe calks (for draft horse shoes). Hank told me that as a kid, he HATED that Champion post drill. It seemed his father would take jobs to build ornamental "iron" fences and gates. Hank would drill endless holes in the fence top and bottom "rails" (flat stock) for the tennons on the "pickets" to enter. According to Hank, if the chips were not heaping on the floor and coming off hot, his father would be hollering.

After Hank's father died, Hank cleaned out the smith shop, and sold the property. He mounted the post drill on a wall in his home's garage and put a large sheet-metal vee pulley on in place of the flywheel. Using a 1/4 HP electric motor salvaged from a washing machine, Hank said that drill had no problem pushing good sized drills thru steel, albeit slowly.

When I got the tools from Hank, I noticed that Hanks Father's name, and simply "Croton Falls, NY" was painted in old-time handwriting with some kind of paint marker on the back of the mounting plank furnished as part of the post drill. At a yard sale, I found a fellow who had a load of curved-spoke flywheels with the old square-headed set screws. Apparently new-old-stock from some mill supply or similar. I bought a few, and one is going onto the Champion post drill. I have another Champion post drill my wife bought me, another yard sale find. She figured it was a blacksmith tool, and the fellow selling was unsure what he had, so for a few bucks he put it in my wife's Blazer. Hank's father's post drill has the "tire hanger" (for drilling bolt holes in steel wagon wheel tires), rather than the table. The drill my wife bought me has both the tire hanger and the table.

Truth to tell, I use neither of the post drills. If I have heavy drilling over 1/2" in diameter, I do it in my Cincinnati-Bickford "camelback" drill, a machine old enough to be in keeping with a blacksmith shop. I am hoping to build a 12' x 20' shed (finally) and put my forge, anvil, leg vise, swage block, and smithing tools out there. When I get that shed built for my smithy, I will mount the post drills. I have a 30" x 40" Champion forge hearth with their "whirlwind" firepot, and the 400 series hand cranked blower. I've toyed with the idea of leaving the smithy without electric power, just relying on a Coleman lantern or two if I run into darkness, and relying on basic smithing methods for the most part.
 
For the high-precision post-drill users out there...

The feed cam on mine is on the shaft that drives the spindle, on which the crank-handle is usually mounted (when not in back-gear) The gear that drives the spindle has 46 teeth, the spindle gear has 30.

The ratchet-wheel that carries the feed nut has 64 teeth, the feed screw has 6 TPI. The camfollower/pawl arm can have its spring-return travel limited by a setscrew to catch enough of the cam rise to advance the feed wheel by 3,2, or 1 tooth per stroke.

Screw feed is approx. .166" per rev. 1/64 of .166 is .0026 " per tooth on the feed wheel.

Spindle turns approx 1.53 rev per cam rev, so smallest feed is 1/1.53 x .0026, so my feeds appear to range from .00166 to .00498 per spindle revolution.

I drill 5/8" holes often, probably have drilled 1 1/4, no pilot hole. I usually split points when resharpening drills. Table is not a rigid as I'd like, so I often have to back off and re-start feed when breaking through lest (or after) the bit grabs.
 








 
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