Drill Press Quill Play

I have a 20 year old Rigid drill pcess I bought at home depot. plunked down about 250 worth of summer vacation work on that thing. still have it, use the heck out of it, and it's got only a few thou runout. I used to have a digital caliper mounted with magnets for a quill dro, but that got lost in the move. Love that machine. Solid, accurate, and paid for itself many times over.
 
Is the play in the quill or the spindle? Or perhaps both. Lock the quill and test again.

David
 
ogberi said:
I have a 20 year old Rigid drill pcess I bought at home depot. plunked down about 250 worth of summer vacation work on that thing. still have it, use the heck out of it, and it's got only a few thou runout. I used to have a digital caliper mounted with magnets for a quill dro, but that got lost in the move. Love that machine. Solid, accurate, and paid for itself many times over.
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I have a fifty year old Avey drill press that has less than .0005" runout on the inside of the taper. It isn't a drill press any more, though. It's a mill.
 
They usually want to have the spindle drop into the quill for quick assembly. This means the outer race of the spindle bearing is not a tight fit inside the quill. A lot of the time you can simply disassemble the quill and pack around the outside of the bearing race with some filler epoxy, or (gasp!) make a special metal cup on your lathe to give everything a good fit.
 
David S said:
Is the play in the quill or the spindle? Or perhaps both. Lock the quill and test again.

David
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If the play is in both is it fixable?
Would it be worth doing the 9x20 lathe shuffle on the new one and if so could all the play be removed?
I've never torn one down before.
 
I had a old Avey No. 3 drill press years ago that had close to an 1/32" of play in the quill. If you held your tongue just right, shifted your body against the quill a certain way, it drilled perfect holes! Oh, I forgot, the No. 3 Morse taper spindle was worn where you kind of had to bump the drill chuck around to get it running true! Needless to say, it found a new home way back when we cleaned out the shop at the old family homestead when it sold.
 
4gsr said:
I had a old Avey No. 3 drill press years ago that had close to an 1/32" of play in the quill. If you held your tongue just right, shifted your body against the quill a certain way, it drilled perfect holes! Oh, I forgot, the No. 3 Morse taper spindle was worn where you kind of had to bump the drill chuck around to get it running true!
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Mine has adjusters for the quill play. I did add tapered shims, though, since the quill was not worn uniformly. Even before I did that, though, the play was only about ..005". I also added a quill lock since I'm using it for milling. There is no play in the bearings. Sounds like yours was used up. I think mine spent a lot of time in a toolroom at 3M doing nothing but accumulating coats of paint.
 
When you start to hit the $1K budget, you can just about own a Bridgeport mill. Won’t be pretty at that price, but will be one hell of a drill press. And it will have a 6” quill travel and a X –Y table not found on a standard import drill press.
 
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