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Cross slide ( X-Y) table for our drill presses

Robotgrass

Plastic
Joined
Jul 5, 2012
Location
Montreal QC
Hello-

We are looking to mount an X-Y table onto our Solberga Drill Press.

The table should be approximately 8" x 24" with 3 or 4 slots, low profile if possible, and decent quality; If only Kurt made XY tables...

The best we've found so far has been a Palmgren, but their largest size is only 6"x 12"

Any suggestions / suppliers would be appreciated.

Cheers

Chuck
Dawson College
Montreal QC
 
Biggest 'add on' X/Y table I've seen is the one Arboga used on their sort-of-converted-to-a-mill-drill mills. And even that's not that large, nor does it have the T-slots you need.

Have you thought about springing for a cheap mill-drill, and just using it as a drill?

Doc.
 
...Have you thought about springing for a cheap mill-drill, and just using it as a drill?

Another option would be to find an old Arboga EM 825 or equivalent. They came with a 2-axis table about the size
you're wanting. Wouldn't necessarily have to be an Arboga. There is a somewhat incestuous relationship between
several Swedish manufacturers who all make very similar machines. Arboga, Solberga and Ima are three and I know
there's another brand (a buddy of mine has one) but i can't for the life of me drag the name out of my foggy old brain.
I'm not sure if parts will actually interchange but there are a lot of similarities.

On another note: Do really "need" an X/Y table? Or is it a perceived need? Generally speaking there are very few
situations where a true drill press needs a 2-axis table. If you really need to be able to accurately move a table in
two dimensions a real milling machine might be a better option. Conversely, most drilling operations work just fine
with a simple drill press vise hand-held or clamped to the table...
 
A few years ago I bought a couple Burgy double aughts because I do a lot of c—drill, tap drill, tap, chamfer ops. Ended up never using because I realized the other critical part was that the drill & tap ops were usually on a more or less complex array or layout that I was used to hitting by counting turns and watching the dials on a mill.

In the old days that would have been accomplished with jigs & tumble jigs; but my parts tend to be onesie/twosie or maybe a dozen. So I’m watching the cheap Chinese ~ 4“ x 9” travel offerings lest a specific project or job comes along. Unfortunately the height runs close to 4” as well, though.

USA Milling Drilling Machine Worktable Cross Slide Table 450*170mm Bench Table | eBay

smt
 
Hello-

We are looking to mount an X-Y table onto our Solberga Drill Press.

The table should be approximately 8" x 24" with 3 or 4 slots, low profile if possible, and decent quality; If only Kurt made XY tables...

The best we've found so far has been a Palmgren, but their largest size is only 6"x 12"

Any suggestions / suppliers would be appreciated.

Cheers

Chuck
Dawson College
Montreal QC

Palmgren is no more than scrap-iron with a temporary stay of execution as garage-hobby grave-goods.

:(

As good as Kurt .. or far better.. DO make X-Y tables. Brand-new. Dovetail slides, linear rails, any size and any precision your budget will support, heavy castings to "optical stages".

Google it, find that precision positioning - mostly as components for CNC'ed systems, but not-only, is actually a fair-sized industry in its own right, and has many major and minor players.

Cheaper, for my drillpress, was to snatch up a whole X-Y table parted-out from a knee-mill.

Light, small, or low profile it was never. But the AB5/S Alzmetall has the daylight and can easily manage the mass.

Solberga? "YMMV" but my one is a 36" long ex B&S #1 "Universal" mill table. Shorter ones do exist.

CAVEAT: I HAVE a decent mill. I don't need the level of precision of a jig bore, either. A table ALONE won't come close to doing that on a DRILLPRESS.

This is not to make the Alzmetall DP INTO a "mill drill" OR a jig-bore in any way at all. Don't expect that of a drillpress. They were not optimized for it.

It just makes "reasonably precise" positioning of heavy work easier, as-in lower-effort, and less inconvenient.

2CW
 
A few years ago I bought a couple Burgy double aughts because I do a lot of c—drill, tap drill, tap, chamfer ops. Ended up never using because I realized the other critical part was that the drill & tap ops were usually on a more or less complex array or layout that I was used to hitting by counting turns and watching the dials on a mill.

In the old days that would have been accomplished with jigs & tumble jigs; but my parts tend to be onesie/twosie or maybe a dozen. So I’m watching the cheap Chinese ~ 4“ x 9” travel offerings lest a specific project or job comes along. Unfortunately the height runs close to 4” as well, though.

USA Milling Drilling Machine Worktable Cross Slide Table 450*170mm Bench Table | eBay

smt

Are you wanting to put the X-Y table under the Burgmaster ?
 
Doug-

A little more to the story:
I saw one of Brzostek’s auctions that was a junk/consignment store in Syracuse with some obscure pictures of the machines & no description. The way they were positioned in the blurry photo made them look like bigger models. On site, the size was disappointing but at the time I was making locks and furniture hardware that would have been a good fit so stuck around & got the pair for $25 or somewhere close to that.

So yes, eventually if another project comes up that makes sense to put more time in the better machine of the pair, I’ll add a cross slide.

If my SB mill had a rotating turret like a BP it would make more sense to take one of the Burgmaster heads & mount it on the ram back end for occasional use. Oh, well. :)

Mostly sympathizing width the OP: there can be good reasons to mount a reasonably accurate & square x-y positioning system on DP type machine. I have at least one Master (brand that used to compete with Versamil) Slide + others but the stack height ends up about the same as the cheap Chinese units yet no T-slots.

smt
 
Palmgren is no more than scrap-iron with a temporary stay of execution as garage-hobby grave-goods.

I do happen to own a *tiny* palmgren rotary table, which is actually pretty well made. Possibly an older unit. Rarely used,
but very handy for small machines - when needed, it's there.
 
Since the OP did not share the operations for which the X/Y table is required, we're at a disadvantage in suggesting solutions.

Slightly OT but feeling the need for an X/Y vise on a DP comes up all the time over on hobby sites. Most often, the idea is they're going to try milling with a bit in a Jacobs chuck. They're quickly advised against trying that.

Right after that idea comes up wanting to add a mechanical or electric table lift to a small drill press.

Makes one wonder how all of us managed to use DPs all those years without either.

That the OEMs didn't offer either on their smaller DPs might be the first clue. If there were need and demand, they'd have been standard or at least optional.

jack vines
 
Doug-

A little more to the story:
I saw one of Brzostek’s auctions that was a junk/consignment store in Syracuse with some obscure pictures of the machines & no description. The way they were positioned in the blurry photo made them look like bigger models. On site, the size was disappointing but at the time I was making locks and furniture hardware that would have been a good fit so stuck around & got the pair for $25 or somewhere close to that.

So yes, eventually if another project comes up that makes sense to put more time in the better machine of the pair, I’ll add a cross slide.

If my SB mill had a rotating turret like a BP it would make more sense to take one of the Burgmaster heads & mount it on the ram back end for occasional use. Oh, well. :)

Mostly sympathizing width the OP: there can be good reasons to mount a reasonably accurate & square x-y positioning system on DP type machine. I have at least one Master (brand that used to compete with Versamil) Slide + others but the stack height ends up about the same as the cheap Chinese units yet no T-slots.

smt

Even if SIP Genevoise had made to the Palmgren's dimensions, the killer is the whole "stack" is too narrow and wobbly for the height, every player involved.

One can get around that. The B&S "Universal" table gets no "knee". The shorter-axis has to be satisfied with a spaced pair of dovetailed milled and "touched up" rails atop the Tee-slots of the Alzmetall's table. Mounting is with eccentrics as can be rotated to snug it. DIY low-profile screw and DONE. Those rails are 9" apart. Total rise is 9" and easily half of it is the "universal rig and pivot, even so.

But... the Alzmetall started out with about four FEET of daylight, waaay more than the Quartet mill. So that JF works.

Wide enough mount, you can scale that height down smartly to smaller goods and have very good anti-tip. Already plotting and scheming a mini-version for the Electro-Mechano 105W.

Might do it with the extruded Aluminum build-a-tee-table goods they sell for CNC routers and the like atop a pair of wide but thin steel plates?

Edges of the plates dovetailed on a planer would surely come directly off a lot ready-to-use nicer than my milling!

:D
 
Slightly OT but feeling the need for an X/Y vise on a DP comes up all the time over on hobby sites. Most often, the idea is they're going to try milling with a bit in a Jacobs chuck. They're quickly advised against trying that.

-I have a (factory) X/Y on my Arboga gearhead DP, which I bought in large part specifically for that feature. It's extremely handy in drilling precision or semiprecision holes- as in needing a series a reasonably precise distance from each other.

And since I do small-lot production, it's also ideal for setting up a fixture to drill a semiprecise feature.

Both of which free up the milling machines for other work.

Doc.
 
For safety, students are required to clamp down their work before any drilling.
The work is usually held in a drill vise, once they tighten the nuts, the vise invariably shifts a bit, being able to adjust in the X/Y a few thou would be ideal.
 
For safety, students are required to clamp down their work before any drilling.
The work is usually held in a drill vise, once they tighten the nuts, the vise invariably shifts a bit, being able to adjust in the X/Y a few thou would be ideal.

A "proper" general-purpose drillpress vise does not have this problem... because is not affixed to the table to begin with.

It is allowed to "float" into alignment with the hole the drill is "generating". It NEEDS to be able to float. Because a drillpress is not a mill.

See "safety vise" or "float-lock vise".

They can clamp the WORK. "Directly."
Or they can clamp a(nother) vise or a tilting vise or table - X-Y included... or a complex fixture plate.

"Entire", even. With "drill bushings", even.

Those things used to place holes accurately and repeatably. Because a drillpress cannot. Not without help. An X-Y table is not that help.

One, or a pair, of (anti) "torque" control rods or flat bar/rail run through holes on the vise back to a pivot or collar free to rotate about the column. Or a pivot NOT on the column prevent rotation.

In use, the work and vise may be slid along the rod or bar. The rod's pivot allows swing.

Between those two axis of movement, a pilot hole or a punch mark may be aligned directly under the drill point both rapidly and accurately. One after another, after another.

AS the drill bites, it tries to rotate the vise.

But cannot.

The rod does not permit ROTATION. Only positioning.

Cheap cheerful, dead-simple, and has been in-use for easily a hundred years.

Including in our school shop, 1950's onward!

Here's how easy it is to use:

What is a Float Lock Vise Tips 492 tubalcain - YouTube

Or to make:

Float Lock Vise

Or simply add a rod to an existng vise of ANY type. That's so cheap and easy I JFDI.

Or "buy some today":

Wahlstrom Float Lock Drill Press Vises - Penn Tool Co., Inc

They have competition. I did say "easy?"

Every bit as accurate as a drillpress can actually deliver, too.

A drillpress is NEITHER OF a jig bore nor a mill. Nor will a more precise X-Y table make it into either one.

If you NEED those machines, acquire them.

Then USE each in its designed realm.

Be safer, happier, faster, and more productive.

2CW. Two mills. Three drillpresses. No accidents.
 
no idea why complicate it. lean the handle on the column and thats it. maybe add a toggle clamp in the corner of the table to hold down the vice.
 
no idea why complicate it. lean the handle on the column and thats it. maybe add a toggle clamp in the corner of the table to hold down the vice.

"Not good enough" with students who do not yet have the experience to calculate risk of lift or such automagically and plan ahead to prevent problems.

Case in point a HS classmate. Ed K___ drilling a hole in the center of a large sheet of thin galvanized. WHEN the drill grabbed, he'd have been fine even freehanding it IF he had but held DOWN force on the quill.

Inexperienced, he was startled, jumped back, letting go of capstan manual feed and the sheet, both.

The DP quill clock-spring lifted the sheet.

The now-spinning edge sliced him right across the upper curve of his portly belly. Didn't need stitches. Didn't de-nipple him. But it was bloody enough. Ruint a nice shirt, too.

And Ed was one of our BEST and most careful students! Turned out eyeball-matched N'Orleans French Quarter style multi-twisted wrought-hot iron gates & grilles like it was easy to make near-as-dammit identical. For him? It WAS easy.

FWIW not much, my Walker-Turner is now around fifty years with a primitive friction damper INSTEAD of a quill return clock-spring. "Mostly" stays where yah left it, neither tries to move up OR down until one MAKES it do.

"Works for me" w/o breaking drills or taps or messing up the work ... or my tits!

:)
.
Even though it has more decent vises with an ess and cee-and-similar clamps that work as expected than I have remaining vices with a cee that work as expected!

:D
 
For safety, students are required to clamp down their work before any drilling.
The work is usually held in a drill vise, once they tighten the nuts, the vise invariably shifts a bit, being able to adjust in the X/Y a few thou would be ideal.

Asking a drill press to locate holes within "a few thousands" is a fools errand.
 
not every drill press is junk. i have one with a floating (lockable) table and a "copy arm". i bet it locates to under one thou. and as to sheet metal, thats what the toggle clamp would have been for.
 
Asking a drill press to locate holes within "a few thousands" is a fools errand.

1) blue the part.
2) scribe the lines
3) prick punch the intersections (under a microscope)
4) deep punch them and correct if needed (again, under a microscope)
5) pilot drill with a new number 50 drill
6) drill to size, larger drill follows the pilot drill

Yes, within a few thou.

Sheet metal? Nobody's heard of unibits, or sheet metal drills?

Drill2.jpg


Drill1.jpg
 








 
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