I found it pretty easy to drill, it seemed to me to drill and tap easier than steel. I was sort of dreading it from what I was hearing and it went way easier than I expected.I have to say that the cast iron is bloody hard to drill even with a brand new HSS drill bit.
I definitely have grey cast iron, I'm just a bit surprised that it's so hard to drill. Actually the table was significantly harder than the base or even the cross slide.I found it pretty easy to drill, it seemed to me to drill and tap easier than steel. I was sort of dreading it from what I was hearing and it went way easier than I expected.
Have you watched this video?
I do have some scrap iron that is harder than hell. HSS won't touch it in any sort of effective way. It is almost like it was quenched after dropping out of the sand.
Looking good David.
Too bad you didn't try getting along without the DRO for a while because you can't get the full appreciation of when you go DRO. Even though I have the iGaging setup it's made my life so much easier and my work so much more accurate. I think my first upgrade was the X drive. Now THAT was a big upgrade from doing it all by hand. I did that a year before the DRO.