Tilted drill press pulley?

My early 90s craftsman drill press has 3 stepped pulleys. Spindle, idler, and motor. The center is an idler on a pivot arm and is slightly angled relative to the spindle. A friend noticed the same thing on his drill press.

Is this by design or bad manufacturing?

Thanks

3v0 said:

My early 90s craftsman drill press has 3 stepped pulleys. Spindle, idler, and motor. The center is an idler on a pivot arm and is slightly angled relative to the spindle. A friend noticed the same thing on his drill press.

Is this by design or bad manufacturing?

Thanks

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Walker-Turner uses the same sort of rig. It didn't ship "perfect", but neither did it have any significant tilt, week one or year one.

Low cost = shorter life is all.

Some of the Alzmetall drillpresses use a countershaft as well. Their ones do NOT tilt.

It's all about how much money you can afford to put into a product vs how much you can get back for the extra work, methods, and material expense.

Call it "compromise" design and manufacturing rather than "bad".

Then JF go and fix it.

I have a drill press like that. It's your basic lousy design/manufacturing. Life goes on.

GregSY said:

I have a drill press like that. It's your basic lousy design/manufacturing. Life goes on.

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"Goes on" and/or gets more expensive as well.

Considering I have about four large into an $800 initial used-cost Alzmetall AB5/S and around $350 into the Electro-Mechano?

The "Goldilocks sized" 1940's Walker-Turner bought used, dawn of the 1970's for $90 WITH a massive steel table and casters NOW worth the whole ninety bucks ...wasn't at all costly, lo these 50-odd years and counting, after all!

With the other two? I no longer need but the "medium" speeds, so that intermediate is nought but a mounting hole.

"Run what you got!"

I sometimes rebuild/restore drill presses just to do it. My friend says I'm "raking my gravel". :-)

I don't think I've ever seen an Asian drill press where the idler pulley hole was bored square so the arc of the pulley arm is exactly horizontal. But, like the man said they work OK so life goes on in other words get over it.

If I had to fix one, I'd braze the hole closed, machine it flat and rebore it.

If there's an easier fix I'd like to hear about it.

metalmagpie

metalmagpie said:

If there's an easier fix I'd like to hear about it.

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Kink a length of CRS shafting. De-burr.

Insert in bore. Rotate it for countervailing error.
Go back to making holes. Belts are forgiving. Drills don't give a flying preversion.

A(ny) cheap-arse DP simply isn't WORTH anything more work nor more complicated.

1940's Walker-Turner has a pair of very deep grooves, face of the quill.

From MY fifty years of dragging it up and down over the washer-shimmed locking clamp. Which still works a treat. No slop to the quill, either.

Go figure.

I was meant to line bore it?

Sleeve it?

Bronze-plate the bore?

Hard-Chrome the quill?

Not for a "disposable DP", I was not!

Swedish uber-grade medium DP? I might have.

Heavy hams Hans, the 4400 lb Avoir early 1950's Alzmetall "column drill"?

No need.

An AB5/S will wear out the whole freakin' world before it's massive quill goes loose! Wish my mill was as tight!

"Run what you GOT!"

Until you can get your mitts on BETTER!

Waste of resources buying Manolo Blanik high-heeled shoes for pigs when they'll put-out for a mere PROMISE of cheap lipstick, abrogated.

termite! you are getting very close to 20000 of you worthless troll post!
Your "RUN WHAT YA GOT" BS is just perfect for you, since you machine shame anyone with good machines.
Just what "YA GOT" running you fucking fake machinist stalking piece of shit!
termite, you have no running machines, you were not a machinist in 1959.

thermite said:

Walker-Turner uses the same sort of rig. It didn't ship "perfect", but neither did it have any significant tilt, week one or year one.
...

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The WT one is adustable for tilt - I've got one of those that I was going to put in service - until I put the VFD on the machine. Now it's a decoration that I can't part with because 'might need it someday.'

jim rozen said:

The WT one is adustable for tilt - I've got one of those that I was going to put in service - until I put the VFD on the machine. Now it's a decoration that I can't part with because 'might need it someday.'

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Don't knock what JFW. I should buy it from you before we BOTH die of old-age and political bullshit toxic byproducts.

My one went missing during a divorce about 33 year ago! Been in direct belt ever since.



Fifty year, that valiant little Walker-Turner has seen more power-on time - everything from alloy steel and other metals, to plastic laminates, to sheet metal, to hole-saws in ply or drywall - than any other machine-tool under-roof save "maybe" a bench grinder/buffer/wire wheeler ... or the compound mitre-box saw now in its fourth generation replacement ... and overdue for #5.

If the bugger were not too bloody-minded stoopid to quit, I'd have a DC drive replacement for it. Parts are lying around for LONG years arredy.

But "quit" was never a word Walker-Turner ever knew the meaning of.
All "delivery", no visible means for sustaining it.

A W-T LOOKS LIKE any other light-duty woodworker-mostly DP.

For reasons never quite clear, they just work better, harder, and longer even on medium-duty metal drilling.

'bout as bloody-minded contrarian as trying to wear-out a Newfoundland sea-fog bank with a deadblow hammer.

I'm serious about the intermediate rig.

I could put-off a better "used most often" DP for .. prolly the rest of the time I have left to give a damn?

The Electro-Mechano solves the wee-holes challenge.

The AB5/S is SUCH overkill it has been serving more as an adjustable Tee-slotted workbench than for making big holes!

Annnnnd . theres a PAIR of "beam trolly" rigs setting under the "bench" W-T's table BOUGHT to covert it to overhead rail mount off a 10" X 8" X 50 lb/ft steel beam that crosses the garage/shop/annex right about midpoint. W-T even sold a "kit" for that purpose, but it was for direct attach to a beam, not rolling.

Kinda handy to go from a 12" "throat depth" to... ISTR 27 feet.. overtop anything I can get onto the old wheeled steel table OR a mobile hydraulic die-cart?

termite! you have never drilled a hole, you are a shit ass troll!
what about you being a cop, and going to throw me in jail?
How about your cop buddy on the other sub forum? Maybe he can help!

Good to see you using the green demon icon, that is really you!

And the 20000 post goal is close! I will help you celebrate being a 20000 post Rooster Fish!

A cheap and dirty pseudo fix would be to bend the shaft that the idler pulley is on. Or the shaft that the idler bracket is fixed to the head casting, whichever is easier. These may not be a perfect fix, but an examination of the angles of those two shafts would be a good way to find out which would provide the better compromise.

Of course, the bent shaft would have to be fixed so that it does not rotate.