- Joined
- Apr 5, 2011
- Messages
- 121
Building a fine feed for a small Homier mill/drill that didn't have one
Some years ago I bought a small mill/drill at a Homier tent sale. The price was great about $175. if I remember right. Just a perfect match for my 6" Atlas. There was no fine feed on it but I got by pretty good just pulling the quill down with the drill handles and locking the quill in place. I wasn't doing that much milling anyway, but as a drill press it sure gave me better accuracy when drilling with no flexing of the table. As time went by I longed for a fine feed so took the pinion shaft out to see what could be done. I came to the conclusion that if a fellow made an extension on the shaft where the knob with the handles were you could likely put a gear in there and somehow drive it with a worm gear. The photo shows the little mill/drill with the start of our fine feed parts assembled for fit. Shortly after we got this far we sold our store/shop in town and built our new shop at home and semi retired. See our photos in the Welcome Centre, New member from Ontario, Canada.
Now three years later we set out to finish that project. I hurt my back 2 weeks ago so when it started to feel a bit better I decided I needed a stand up project that didn't require a lot of strain and this was it. You will see that we added a piece of shaft in photo #1 by shrink fit to the original pinion shaft and machined it down so that it was the same size as the original so the knob with the handles would fit back on.
This will also work on almost any drill press.
Some years ago I bought a small mill/drill at a Homier tent sale. The price was great about $175. if I remember right. Just a perfect match for my 6" Atlas. There was no fine feed on it but I got by pretty good just pulling the quill down with the drill handles and locking the quill in place. I wasn't doing that much milling anyway, but as a drill press it sure gave me better accuracy when drilling with no flexing of the table. As time went by I longed for a fine feed so took the pinion shaft out to see what could be done. I came to the conclusion that if a fellow made an extension on the shaft where the knob with the handles were you could likely put a gear in there and somehow drive it with a worm gear. The photo shows the little mill/drill with the start of our fine feed parts assembled for fit. Shortly after we got this far we sold our store/shop in town and built our new shop at home and semi retired. See our photos in the Welcome Centre, New member from Ontario, Canada.
Now three years later we set out to finish that project. I hurt my back 2 weeks ago so when it started to feel a bit better I decided I needed a stand up project that didn't require a lot of strain and this was it. You will see that we added a piece of shaft in photo #1 by shrink fit to the original pinion shaft and machined it down so that it was the same size as the original so the knob with the handles would fit back on.
This will also work on almost any drill press.
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