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Old drill press

tomahawk2414

Plastic
Joined
Aug 9, 2014
Location
Shenandoah Valley Virginia
Hi, I picked up this old drill press at an estate sale. Motor is a Craftsman, but I cannot find any name on the drill itself.
Unique design. Similar to the delta 620.
Thanks.
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I have a very old drill with no dimples .....used in a wood shop with a thick block of wood bolted to the table.......8" thick,no drill could get thru.......downside was they obviously didnt like oil.
 
Not sure if Craftsman ever used this configuration but with other makes around the same vintage the Drill Press and other accessories were driven off the table saw motor, hence the right angle v-belt drive.

Nice find,

Dave

Now I gotta find an 8 inch piece of wood :)
 
I've never seen a drill press driven from a table saw, but "garage" machinery progressed similarly to old industrial tools. The rotation that a tool was powered with was a separate thing for a long time. It wasn't until the 1930's-1940's that it became normal for machine tools to have motors integrated into their design. Before that it was expected that the purchaser would set-up a motor or other means of powering a tool (gas motor, steam, treadle, etc.). Once it became normal for motors to be mounted on the machines, you still had loads of shops out there with jack-shafts mounted above the work bench running half the shop, so some manufacturers still made drill press's, lathes, saws, etc. with these guys in mind, at least up till the 1950's.
 
I saw one that a neighbour inherited, the same Delta set up as in your post Bill. You also see the adds in old Popular Mechanics. It is easy to forget just how much motors and tools used to cost relative to the wages most people earned.

In the working class neighbourhood where I grew up most Dads had some hand woodworking/plumbing tools and eventually managed to buy an electric hand saw and small electric hand drill. One of my friends Dad's had a table saw, drill press and wood lathe (locked away from kids hands in a workshop ... didn't really stop us). I never saw other power tools until I took shop in Junior High. Somewhere I have an old carpentry book that suggests boss's pay their carpenters an extra 5 cents an hour if they have bought their own skil saw.

Dave
 








 
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