Don't lose your set-up by raising or lowering your drill press table.

[Tmate]

I have a 75 year old Walker Turner drill press without a hand crank to raise and lower the table. Whenever I changed from a center drill to a drill bit, or from a drill bit to a tap, I would lose my alignment by raising or lowering the table. The simple fix was to use a smaller secondary chuck with a straight arbor to gain any extra length needed.

 

[Bruce Billett]

Nice, VERY nice!!

b

 

[AmericanMachinist]

Thanks for sharing. I do have hand crank. How does that help me keep exact alignment around the column as i raise/lower?

Thanks!

 

[brino]

How does that help me keep exact alignment around the column as i raise/lower?

I believe it means that you no longer need to raise and lower the table.
You just need the foresight to put your shorter tools into a holder of some kind to give them extra length.
Then the normal quill feed it enough.

-brino

 

[AmericanMachinist]

I believe it means that you no longer need to raise and lower the table.
You just need the foresight to put your shorter tools into a holder of some kind to give them extra length.
Then the normal quill feed it enough.

-brino

I understand that. The original message seemed to imply with a hand crank you could keep your center located. So was wondering about that and how i could take advantage of having one.

 

[Tmate]

Perhaps I could have stated it more clearly. With no hand crank, I have to wrestle with the table and twist it to raise it, thus ruining the setup. The crank eliminates that difficulty, but doesn't necessarily maintain a perfect alignment.

My suggestion makes the whole problem moot, as it removes the need to adjust the table height.

 

[Bruce Billett]

Does anyone know of a rotary or axial DRO?
I have looked, OK half heartedly, I have found nothing that would indicate these even exist?

b

 

[Flyinfool]

You could Add a couple set screws to the rack so that it can not move while raising and lowering the table, That will act as a key to maintain rotational position. You may have to add some shims to the rack channel to remove slop there too.

The other way is to use the hole that you drilled in the first op to relocate for the next op. The distance from the column will not change so you are only having to locate rotationally. This can be done by putting a piece of drill rod in the chuck to drop into the hole to get the alignment.

I will admit I have done it but putting a chuck in a chuck multiplies the run out of each piece and can get pretty far out by the end

 

[pontiac428]

Does anyone know of a rotary or axial DRO?
I have looked, OK half heartedly, I have found nothing that would indicate these even exist?

b

That would be a good project for Arduino. You can use a resolver or a rotary encoder (sounds fancier than it is) through the Arduino, which would simply convert pulses to degrees, drive a small output display, and maybe manage a reset switch. You'd just have to work out the most reasonable way to integrate the sensor into your rotary table, either direct drive or via gears or cog belt.

 

[Bruce Billett]

Pontiac
True, the electronic part the arduino would work fine. I would hope that I could use one of my existing DRO ports to read this out? At least for my mill head movement. My table doesn't move that way. Might be interesting on a drill press, but that setup I work around very well when I need to move the table. The issue I am looking at is how to attach some sort of accurate encoder between the main support and the head? The gear idea is interesting, but I don't see how one could attach something to the column the would a) not rotate b) be out of the way as I raised and lowered the head? As such, I suspect that is out of the question unless I can come up with some way of accurately etching the entire column? I shutter at the very thought!
I could use something for my rotary table though , and the gear/pulse counter might just work. I would think a bull gear that fit the table and and a hall effect would be fine for that.

b