0t----Rolando's turning machines

Interesting look at another part of the world. Listening to Mr. Capelli I couldn't help but think of the Godfather; "wheres Guido?" He sleeps with the fishes... I liked his wall mounted drill press. Thanks. Jim

On that manual drill press, it appeared that the fly weights were the feed. Clever. Takes only one hand to run it, so you can hold the work, yet it is simple and can automatically retract the drill when done (maybe!).

JST, I wondered how that worked. Were the fly weights connected to a screw mechanism? Jim

I bought the booklet: "Pipe dream of old time Machinists" awhile ago. There is a story in that booklet about an apprentice named Johnny who was "an inventive cub" and always was "wanting to make somp'in". As the story goes, Johnny went out to the smithy (a separate building from the machine shop where he was an apprentice). The smithy was still used for heat treating and forging tools, but was kind of a repository for assorted junk and old machine parts. In the smithy was a post drill with the usual screw feed, a tool used when the founder of the shop first went into business. Also in the smithy was the flyball governor from the first steam engine used to power the shops, since replaced (as the story notes) with a "Wheelock" engine. The author notes that the balls on the governor would make good ammunition for a "trench mortar".

Johnny called the journeymen and foreman out to the smithy to show them his latest invention. He had taken the old post drill and grafted the old steam engine flyball governor on top of it, replacing the screw feed. The problem was that in order to feed the drill, the crank had to be turned fast enough to get the governor balls to start raising, pushing down on the speeder rod in the governor and down on the drill spindle. Anyone who has ever used a post drill knows that as drill sizes increase, it gets harder to turn the crank with the "peck feed" advancing the drill into the work, even with the usual flywheel the old post drills had. The problem with Johnny's adaptation of the governor to the post drill was that for drilling anything other than a relatively small diameter hole, no one could keep the drill turning fast enough to have the governor maintaining feed on the bit.

Seeing this film of Ronaldo Capelli and his machine tools reminded me of that story. I wonder if the flyballs on Sr. Capelli's drill work opposite to the way the old steam engine governor worked on Johnny's adaptation. Either way, it is kind of comical to see what amounts to a steam engine governor on a hand cranked drill. Probably put almost as much effort into keeping the governor balls turning as is put into turning the drill. Whoever dreamed up that drill probably figured they would use the stored energy in the massive governor assembly instead of the usual flywheel, aside from using it to feed the drill into the work.

I kind of doubt the flyballs governor was connected to a screw mechanism. Rather, as the speed of the drill spindle increased, the balls tended to swing out or rise. The balls, in rising, pulled up on a collar. This collar likely works a lever (with a fork to engage the collar on the governor ball head). As the ball head rises, the collar pulls the end of the lever upwards. This lever, working thru a fulcrum, exerts a downward force with less movement than the collar- and more force applied to the drill spindle. There is likely some adjustment to the lever mechanism to set the feed rate. It's still a screwy way to go about building a hand cranked drill, in my opinion. Chances are the guy who designed it thought he was the incarnation of Leonardo DaVinci. I am more inclined to think that the guy who designed and marketed that drill probably had ancestors who furnished the plumb lines and levels to the contractors who built the Tower of Pisa.

If you look at the video in that section, "Rolando" flips the balls downwards to retract the drill from what appears to be wood.

It appears to be intended by size and light construction, to use small drills, and while the rpm affects feed pressure, it does not appear to be excessive nor a problem. In any case, it is making chips drilling the piece of steel strap in the last bit about that drill about 5:20 or so.