Camelback

Good morning fellow old machine guys. I need your opinion on a camelback I looked at yesterday. I had to crawl over a lot of stuff to get these bad pictures of it but here they are. The drill is an Excelsior.









Is there anything missing or broken beyond repair? Is this worth $100?

I've always wanted one, well since I've been a member here, and here is an opportunity. Don't tell my wife, please.
toolles

Toolles said:

Is there anything missing or broken beyond repair? Is this worth $100?

I've always wanted one, well since I've been a member here, and here is an opportunity. Don't tell my wife, please.
toolles

Click to expand...

I've got one - these things are coming out of thewoodwork lately.
$100 is less than scrap value.
How are you going to power it? I don't see a lower countershaft or provisions for mounting a motor on rear of base
Feed handle intact? Check
Feed handle stop rod intact and present? Check
looks like the power feed belt is AWOL
Any chucks or bits to go with it?
These will exceed your initial purchase price by a fair margin if not present.

Del

Heres several more members of the club:Big Drill

Tooles;

That's an Excelsior 20", made by Royersford. It's from somewhere in the 1910-1925 era. I own one just like it, currently under restoration. There are several other threads going on in this forum right now about the various models of Royersfords and their suspiciously identical sisters. For some reason, the Royersfords are the most common upright drills still around today. There are a lot of us on this forum that own them, and we can help you with questions.

Is it worth $100? Sure! That seems to be the "standard" price for old camelback drills in that condition. With maybe 20 hours' work and $200 worth of motor and parts, you'll have a fine old machine that'll do heavy work and will put a smile on your face every time you use it.

Overall, this drill looks pretty good and complete on the top end. I see two things missing at the bottom. One is the leadscrew and crank mechanism that goes on the side of the column, which raises and lowers the table. The other is the yoke and countershaft assembly that bolts down to the base at the back. It has a large 4-step cone pulley similar to the one up on the top. Maybe the parts are lying around nearby? If they are, you're in good shape. If not, you can still get the drill running and useful, but it will take some scrounging and fabrication.

delTool said:

How are you going to power it? I don't see a lower countershaft or provisions for mounting a motor on rear of base
Feed handle intact? Check
Feed handle stop rod intact and present? Check
looks like the power feed belt is AWOL
Any chucks or bits to go with it?
These will exceed your initial purchase price by a fair margin if not present.
Del

Click to expand...

I guess I should be asking myself as a member of AMHG and that I generally like old tools can I sleep at night if I let this one, that is so close to home, get away?
Anyway to answer some of your questions, Del, What you see is all there is. I would have to find all the missing parts for it.

QUOTE from Bruce Johnson "Maybe the parts are lying around nearby? If they are, you're in good shape. If not, you can still get the drill running and useful, but it will take some scrounging and fabrication".

I think there will be a lot of scrounging to get this one running.
Thanks,
toolles

Bruce Johnson said:

Tooles;... I see two things missing at the bottom. One is the leadscrew and crank mechanism that goes on the side of the column, which raises and lowers the table.
The other is the yoke and countershaft assembly that bolts down to the base at the back. It has a large 4-step cone pulley similar to the one up on the top. Maybe the parts are lying around nearby? If they are, you're in good shape. If not, you can still get the drill running and useful, but it will take some scrounging and fabrication.

Click to expand...

Toolles: here's a link to Royersford catalog LINK. It show a 21 but they both share a common layout.

Examine page 2: You'll see the missing countershaft and yoke along with the table cranking mechanism.

Those tables are HEAVY!

Del

I guess you're just too persuasive. I made the deal this morning and plan on picking it up tomorrow AM. The guy who bought it purchased the drill as a lot including other machines and planned on scrapping it. So I gotta save it right? I wonder if that argument will work with my wife? I'll take more & better pics tomorrow and post them.
toolles

Condolances to the wife. But she'll know where to find you when she REALLY needs you.

Meanwhile, that table raising stuff is not that hard to get around. A scissor jack will work in the short term. But I'll bet some square allthread can be scoped out from what parts remain and you can cobble something together to bring the mechanism back in some manner or fashion similar to the original.

It looks like the raising yoke is still there in the pix? Don't forget the possibility of using babbitt metal as a "filler" between the allthread and the hole in the raising yoke. I can't remember my original Royersford (now 30 years gone to the scrappie) but something seems to tell me the raising yoke was machined with square thread to match the rod. But it doesn't need to be that way exactly.

Now start keeping your eye out for a pair of bevel gears and a hand crank. Some of the low end machine tool houses like Grizzly, or MSC or Enco carry iron castings made overseas of handwheels, cranks, and levers that you might find useful. I think the last 6" handwheel I bought was something like $12? Dunno, it's been a while.

Gotta love those Royersfords though. My first "big" drill. Did a whole bunch of split rail fenceposts using a 3" holesaw and autofeed, and chip out the triangles afterwards.

Joe

That's funny, Joe, I holed split rail posts with a Royersford, also, though i used a big drill--something like 2 or 2.375--made big cedar chips, piles of them. I think the last of the posts may still be up.

That's very true. A big 'ol camelback drill is wonderful for woodworking too. The slow speed, high torque, rigid frame combination is perfect for large diameter boring in hardwoods. With a big carbide forstner bit, it'll quickly hog the waste out of pocket or a mortise. It's faster and less mess than trying to do the whole job with a router.

Royesford

Well the 21" Royesford Excelsior is in her new home now.



Unloading





I've got to find room for her now. No hurry She needs a lot of cleaning and an inventory of what's missing and broke.

I also picked up some nice morris taper drills and reamers.





This is great. The MT drills will work in my Dreses radial arm too.
toolles

That's great! I'm glad that you saved it. That's the technique for lifting them; it looks a little funny, but it's safer than most other methods. I lifted mine like that with my A-frame gantry crane to get it off the truck and set it onto its wooden base.

So, yours is a 21" model, not a 20". But it has the short base for lineshaft operation. We've been discussing the Royersford models and timelines on another thread. If our speculation is correct, your machine would be from the late 1930's or early 1940's.

We'll help you with pictures and dimensions of the parts you're missing. I was just shuffling machines around in my shop this afternoon, moving my new Royersford 21 into a good position. My Royersford 20 is all disassembled, and the parts are all on shelves and in boxes. If anyone needs me to document some particular parts, speak up.

Anyone got pictures of what this drill press should look like? Did it have a counter shaft & step pully or was it driven straight off of a line shaft? What bolts to the side of the column and what is the round casting on the base? I scraped some grime off of it and sprayed the moving parts with WD-40 and everything freed up and seems to turn fine. Is the spindle spring loaded? This one will drop if you let go of the handle. I'm very excited about all the drills I got with it. I don't see any wear on any of them. I think they are all new, except the smallest one. The table has only one divit (1" dia), near the center. The rest of the surface is pristine.
toolles

The missing part at the column and the round part at the base are the two spots the missing screws attach to for cranking up and down the table.

The spindle is not spring loaded but is or should be counterweighted, with a weight inside the column, and that sounds as if it is either not present or not properly set up.

Here's the pictures of my Royersford 21. It's the same machine as yours, except it has the extended base with the motor mount built in. Yours would have the same yoke & countershaft assembly bolted to the base. In place of the large double V belt pulley would be a pair of fast/loose flat belt pulleys, about 7" dia x 2 1/2" wide. Those would be driven by a belt from the overhead lineshaft. So, if you plan to run yours from an electric motor, you'll need to rig up something similar to what's on mine. You'll need a lower countershaft with a stepped cone pulley to match the upper one, and then drive that at about a 1:6 ratio from a 1750 rpm 1 hp motor. If you can't find a suitable cone pulley somewhere, you can make one up from steel, cast iron, or even laminated hardwood.

The table elevating parts also shouldn't be too hard to fabricate. The vertical threaded shaft is 1" diameter with a square thread, but you could make up a replacement from 1" ACME threaded rod. The bottom end is turned to a tip that rides in the little cup in the base casting. The upper end is pinned to the bevel gear. The gears are 3" diameter with a 1" bore.

The quill is (supposed to be) counterbalanced by a big iron weight that hangs down inside the column. A small roller chain attaches to the clamp ring on the quill, and runs over two pulleys, down into the hollow center. You may have some fun fishing that counterweight up from inside the column and attaching it to the chain through the slot in the back of the column. You can see the second pulley inside the slot.

I notice that the tip of the long handle on yours looks like it's been cut off? I wonder why? Maybe someone got smacked in the head when the counterweight chain broke, and cut it off in revenge!

Here are more of the pictures:

Thanks northernsinger,
I'm beginning to get a better understanding of what size a job this will be. I've always liked a challange.
Thanks Bruce Johnson for the pics. That's a good looking machine. I'm wondering, too why the long handle is short. I didn't know it was until I saw what it is supposed to look like. Here are a few more things I noticed about my machine.
The catch/release lever is broken.
The "gullwing" spindle feed arm has one end broken off
There is a swivel bracket, I guess to lock the auto feed lever in place that is broken.
The gear cover at the cone is missing
I'm going to have to write this all down so I can focus my efforts.
One more question. The casting of the base did not have provisions for an electric motor? This was strictly a line shaft machine?
toolles

In these scans, you can see the different versions of the 21" drill (electric motor belt drive, line shaft drive, and electric motor gear drive). Your drill is the line shaft version, so has a shorter base than the other two.

http://www.wade8a.com/pmimages/royersford01.jpg
http://www.wade8a.com/pmimages/royersford02.jpg
http://www.wade8a.com/pmimages/royersford03.jpg

Andy

Here are some Excelsior 20" parts for sale:

Old Woodworking Machines • Login

I don't know if this will help or not.

"Board Requires you to be registered and logged in to use this forum."

Not a big deal.

Joe

His drill is a 21", and from what Bruce says the two drills don't interchange many parts.
Andy