Radial drill table

Have a Fosdick 3’ arm sensitive radial drill press. Previous owner torqued the heck out of his hold down bolts and the area near some of the slots are as much as ten to fifteen thou raised. Enough that I can’t slide stuff across table without catching. Will scrape it down. I’ll likely stop once blue starts spreading out from raised area and call it good enough, but will also measure from spindle. If I get fussy, should I be shooting for half a thou high per foot at free end of table, or 0/0?

For those that haven’t seen this kind of drill, it’s also designed for boring, not just rough drilling. Whether I’ll ever use it for boring is another question...

L7

I saw this one on Ebay...

I would probably draw file the T-slots first before scraping them. If I were you I would do some lock and unlock the head and table before scraping and expecting repeatability if your looking for any sort of accuracy, I would think if it repeats withing .005 to .010 you will be lucky as hell.
Fosdick 3’ arm sensitive radial drill press - Bing video

Yup, that’s my type of drill. And yup, I’ve already draw filed the worst spots on the table and am just starting to scrape.

Thanks, will shim up a surface plate on the table square to spindle and take some repeatability measurements. I realize this is just a drill and the fact the table was only planed, not scraped from factory probably tells me something.

Regards,
L7

lucky7 said:

Yup, that’s my type of drill. And yup, I’ve already draw filed the worst spots on the table and am just starting to scrape.

Thanks, will shim up a surface plate on the table square to spindle and take some repeatability measurements. I realize this is just a drill and the fact the table was only planed, not scraped from factory probably tells me something.

Regards,
L7

Click to expand...

Draw file & "Jitterbug" sander here. (Alzmetall AB5/S). OEM table has planer marks. Most have and will remain.

Hell-for-stout drillpress @ around 4,400 Avoir. But I ain't QUITE as stupid as I look, so I don't equate it with a mill.

Nor does the work need that much finesse anyway. Or it would be ON the mill.

A 12” diameter column supporting a mere 3’ arm suggests some rigidity. And the fact it was designed for boring, not just drilling.

Anyhoo, job done and I’m happy with result.

L7

lucky7 said:

A 12” diameter column supporting a mere 3’ arm suggests some rigidity. And the fact it was designed for boring, not just drilling.

Anyhoo, job done and I’m happy with result.

L7

Click to expand...

They get sloppy, up-top.

All I've ever done, ATW 8-footer, involved a piloted reamer. ELSE just providing motation power to a cased-up line-bore kit that was more or less "slave" to the workpiece and cudda been powered just about any old way - "portable" drill-motor included.

"Piloted" side-steps a lot of risky bizness.

The only thing as might tempt me to run one of the Chandler's in the AB5/S is that it has about 50% longer quill travel than my combo mill.

OTOH, geared hand-crank and the rack-raised table swings about the column and has ZERO swing position registration, ergo "no" useful Z on the DP whilst the mill does have, and with power feed.

Curiosity...

How is it a 'sensitive feed'? Is there another handwheel no shown in the video? The feed handle and power feed actuation looks exactly like a big Carlton, and those are definitely not sensitive LoL.

How is it 'made for boring' as well as drilling? Special attachment?

I’m not a radial drill expert, suggest asking Tyrone or others, but I think it’s called a sensitive as it’s much easier to swing into position than a regular drill its size and it’s probably designed for smaller drills and taps than a three foot arm would normally handle? I’ve only used six or seven radial drills and only up to five foot arms. Maybe Fosdick called theirs ‘Sensitive’ due to it’s bigger column and presumably bigger anti friction bearings making easier rotating? Maybe because the arm doesn’t travel up and down the column, just rotates? Maybe something else I don’t know. Maybe just marketing. Anyways, I just find it easy to locate the spindle on this machine compared with other drills I’ve used. For boring, the spindle has an extra slot to wedge in mt HBM tooling. And feed goes down to 2thou/rev. Can’t recall if that’s finer feed than usual.

L7

lucky7 said:

..feed goes down to 2thou/rev. Can’t recall if that’s finer feed than usual.

Click to expand...

That would do it.

ISTR my Alzmetall is about 8 times that coarse, lowest feed.