Old Drill Press........is Home.......... Now the rebuild!!!

Looking really good, Stu! But I've been thinking that the green looks a bit... let's just say light, for a power tool of this cailbur. I'd have gone with red. But that's just me. ;-)

Stuart Ablett said:

Thanks and yeah, big time feels good!

About the green, I could have been original and painted it...................gray..........

Click to expand...

Then we couldn't call it the greenie weenie.


With this drill-press you don't need no saw-stop weenie slicer.

Kermit Lives!!

Yep, Kermit is making chips!


Just for you Marty, making some chips!


The run out, or what little there is of it!

runs as smooth as silk, I'm really happy!

I still have a few things to do, to get it going, and I've got to make a stand for it.

Another few days.............

Cheers!

Vaughn McMillan said:

Yeah, I agree Stu. I'd only be willing to pay about $70.49 more for purple. Anything more than that is just too much.

Click to expand...

I was going to "give" him some plum crazy purple.......



....shipping might have been a bit though....


Looks great Stu.

Maybe you need another name

Stu

Looking great, and I like the color, but Kermit sometimes comes across as a bit of a wimp.

So............ echos of the 60's

Jeremiah was a bull frog........ (Three Dog Night --- Joy to the World)

And since that is a BIG piece of green old iron

I suggest a name change!


Jay

Jay Knoll said:

Stu

Looking great, and I like the color, but Kermit sometimes comes across as a bit of a wimp.

So............ echos of the 60's

Jeremiah was a bull frog........ (Three Dog Night --- Joy to the World)

And since that is a BIG piece of green old iron

I suggest a name change!


Jay

Click to expand...

If you wanna tell my lovely two daughters that Kermit is a whimp.......

Not going to happen!

Stuart Ablett said:

Kermit Lives!!

Yep, Kermit is making chips!

View attachment 4064
Just for you Marty, making some chips!

View attachment 4065
The run out, or what little there is of it!

runs as smooth as silk, I'm really happy!

I still have a few things to do, to get it going, and I've got to make a stand for it.

Another few days.............

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Well Stu,

I am totally humbled by your restoration job.

Looks like Kermit will be serving you well for many tomorrow's!

Congrats...
- Marty -

Thanks Marty, kudos from you, the king of "do it right the first time" are high praise!

Now I need to spruce it up a bit and build a cabinet for it.

Cheers!

Super job on the retore, that one will serve you well. A new freestanding DP is on my short list along with... well quite a few other things.

Kermit has had some more upgrades


The pulley that was on the motor was only a 3 step one, the pulley on the front of Kermit is a 4 step one, also the motor pulley was on there just from the friction of the too long bolt pushing it down on the motor shaft. In using Kermit to drill that one hole to make some chips, the motor pulley would slip..........

I wondered if the 5 step, unobtainium pulley I got for the old C-man lathe would fit, and it does

So I'll just buy another one for the C-man and use this one on Kermit. I know this one is a 5 step, but what the heck....


Kermit gets some wheels!

I toyed with using the old metal stand, I even cleaned it up a bit, but then I found it was out of square by about half an inch....... Not going to use that, it would be on three wheels all the time, kind of tippy.

I banged this stand together tonight, nothing pretty, but it is solid and I'll make some drawers for it at some point, right now I've got to get learning how to make spindles for that photo shot on the 11th of Feb!

Cheers!

Most excellent job Stu.

If ever there was a man to obtain the unobtainium, I’m guessing its you.

Yeah well there is a story behind that little pulley, I looked and looked and looked again, but could not find one, we called pulley makers, they offered to MAKE me one on their CNC but that was a bit out of my price range

One day I was in a Joyful Honda (my Fav DIY store) not the one I usually go to, and I was talking to the guys at the tools and machinery part dept, they told me that in no uncertain terms, that it was unobtainium, did not exist in Japan, and could not be had for love or money.............

I walked about 6 feet over to a drill press that was standing there, and popped the top of the drill press, pointed at the pulley on the motor, a 5 stepper and said "What's that...........?"

I ended up ordering one from the guys that bring in the elcheapo copy of the C-man lathe, as it was WAY cheaper than ordering one from Hitachi or whomever.

Anyway, I'm fooling with the idea of a VFD.......

I found a 3-phase 0.4 Kw motor (about 1/2 Hp) and a corresponding sized VFD on Yahoo here.............


It is about $25 right now, and $5 for shipping, so $30 for the motor.....

and the VFD.....


This one, which is a dial control, no read out.... $20

and this one.........


Which will handle a bit larger motor, (up to 0.75 Kw) for $25, it has a digital read out.

So for about $50 or $60 I could put a VFD on Kermit ;D

I might just buy the parts now and worry about it later........

OK who knows something about hooking up a VFD is it a matter of just hooking the motor leads to the terminals on the VFD and that is it?

Cheers!

Stuart Ablett said:

OK who knows something about hooking up a VFD is it a matter of just hooking the motor leads to the terminals on the VFD and that is it?

Click to expand...

Basically. You need to program the VFD to tell it input and output voltages, depending on the model. And with the ones I have fooled with you can add a remote really easy. Onmy lathe I am going to mount a metal box with a magnet to the head and add a E-stop and a pot for speed control. Move it to where ever you want. It connects with low voltage cable.

I can see 3 phase motors really making inroads into the small/home shop. With the arrival of these compact and affordable VFD's we can all benefit from cheaper less complex 3 phase motors. I can't count the number of times I looked at a machine and said "Ah shoot - it's 3 phase, can't use it."

Soft start, variable feed and smoother application of power - as they say these days "It's all good!" Lathes, DP's and grinders seem to be the most obvious choices, but I'm sure we'll come up with others

Stu,

I just read through this thread in detail. Wow, I'm impressed. Very nice work!

John

Stu,

Lots of posts on this thread that I haven't been following. Gotta say that is one heck of a nice restore. Very impressed. One thing I would recommend is some some nice turned knobs on the end of those bare, steel rod handles.

Thanks John and Alex, it has been fun.

Last night I needed to make a few mods to the lathe, for the spindle work and I used Kermit for the first time in "Anger" boy what a difference over the Toy drill press



Drilling a hole on edge, this is for a longer tool rest I'm making for the lathe, to do the spindle work.

I also drilled a 1" hole with a carbide tipped hole saw, on the old toy press, it took a good 10 minutes, to drill the same hole through a 1/2" thick plate. Kermit did it in about a minute, hot diggity dog!!

I am going to put the VDF on Kermit, I've found that the lowest speed is a bit fast for the larger bits.

Cheers!

A couple of minor things to report, I needed a break from turning table legs, so I hooked up Kermits Light.............



and put his name plate back in place!



Cheers!