Craftsman King Seeley Drill Press with Vari-Speed Restoration

[aztoyman]

Newb here. Joined forum because I bought a Vintage Lathe and need to learn to use it. I love old American Iron and I found this old drill press in a collapsing adobe shed and got it cheap.

I don't see many Craftsman drill press posts so I thought I'd share my first vintage iron resto.



I should have taken pics before I gave it a hosing. It was a ball of dirt, debris from the caved in roof and wasp nests.

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Tried to edit bad spelling and a duplicate pic in last reply. Wouldn't let me.

The motor was a 1/3 HP Westinghouse. It worked fine but I found an old Craftsman 1/2HP motor and stuck it on.

There was no on/off switch, just a plug. Pretty scary to operate like that. Caved in to the import market and put a HF foot pedal on instead of trying to find a place for a switch.

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I don't know what the heck I did. I tried to edit a duplicate pic out and lost most of my text and it got all rearranged. Sorry for the confusion.

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Everything I add is going in the thread out of order.

I found American made N.O.S. bearings and actually found American made V-belts. The belts were tough to find. Tried to keep it 100%American. My O.C.D. kicked in and I thought it deserved it. Other than the HF foot switch it is.

Very cool drill press. Vari-Slow is pretty slick too.

 

[ricsmall]

Very nice job az. I was at my cousins house a couple weeks ago and he has the same press, only it's a floor model. Tried to swindle him out of it,but you can't swindle a swindler!!

richard

 

[RandyM]

Very nicely done Azto. Now that you have it looking all spiffy, how does it run?

 

[stevecmo]

That turned out great. Nice job!

 

[Cactus Farmer]

Wow! That looks great. Especially with the chuck mounted.........wink,wink. Glad I could help.

 

[rafe]

I have an old king seeley drill press and have used it for years ...Love it , Yours is the first one I have seen with the Vari-slo ...I wish mine had that .....I picked up a south bend and it's great , but I still use the craftsman a lot....Nice score

 

[aztoyman]

Thanks for the compliments. Randy it runs great. The Var- Slow is actually a pretty slick setup. I usually keep it as slow as possible for my metal work. I kick it up for some buffing wheels. It will slip a belt if you try to really load it down but not often. I drilled 9/16" holes through a stack of 4 pieces of flat bar clamped in a vise when I made leaf spring shackles for my rock crawler. Hole saws in thick steel need to go slow and lots of oil.

I really like it. I wish it was the floor model though. I might sell it ONLY once I get myself at least a mill/drill. Even then it would be tough. It's just so cool. Everything from the 50's was about style and beauty. Even machinery. It's the first thing people notice when they walk in my garage. I was actually looking for a large vintage drill press and just couldn't let this beauty go to the scrap yard.

Cactus, I ended up with two of those chucks. The extra is now on my lathe tail stock thanks to you.

 

[wa5cab]

toyman,

I removed the duplicate photograph. But I didn't see any typos. And the text seems to be in oldest to newest order as far as I can tell, which at least in my opinion is generally correct within a single post.

Nice looking drill press. I found what I think is it in the 1955 Sears Power Tools catalog. With chuck, motor and Vari-Slow it sold for $134 that year. Fairly pricy for the time. The bare drill press was $89.00.

On the switch location, from the catalog photos there does not appear to have ever been one. All of the photos show the line cord with plug just dangling from the motor.

Robert D.

 

[aztoyman]

Thanks Robert. I had originally posted in sections with comments on the find ,teardown and cleaning then assembly with comments in each section. I noticed the duplicate photo and after hitting edit and removing it, things got all combined and text put in places I didn't put it originally. I guess it worked out OK.

Thanks for the info you found on it. When I checked the model number on a vintage iron site a while back, it showed 1950 vintage for the bare drill and apparently they came without motors. Maybe why mine had a 1/3 HP Westinghouse. The no switch situation sure wasn't good.

There seemed to be quite a few attachments available for it back then. The Vari-Slo seems pretty desirable. I see requests from people looking for them quite often.


I'd rather had the center post third pulley option myself. Can slow the sucker down even more and no belt slippage. Easy enough to make something but, then I'd have to take the Vari-Slow off.

 

[wa5cab]

toyman,

The earliest catalog that I found it in was 1948. Although if Sears published any Power Tools catalogs between 1944 and 1948, I've had no luck in locating them. So all I can say is that the drill press model number is at least as old as 1948. It was available both with and without a motor. Same model number, different catalog number (and price, of course). The special locking chuck didn't appear until 1952. And the Vari-slo accessory until 1953. I didn't look forward of 1955 to see when it was discontinued.

Robert D.