I was able to chat with @toolsntat in person this week, and was very pleased when he showed me something he'd picked up recently. Inspired by this shot
of the corner of my workshop where several bench drills / drill stands squeeze in together beside the miniature bandsaw, he thought that what would go well there would be another drilling machine!
But not just an ordinary machine. Apparently he'd been buying some tools from the workshop of someone who had been a skilled model engineer and had picked this little thing up from where it had been abandoned, unloved in the dirt and detritus of the years.
What could I do to resist? Nothing! He's just so persuasive. Admittedly, there is some dirt on it
and some of the wiring was a bit crispy, and also too short to connect to a new plug!
but it looked like it could be revived, so I accepted it gratefully and brought it home.
Looking at it together, we noticed a few things, apart from the dirt.
It's probably been built by the previous owner, maybe with commercially available castings, or modified from another machine.
The vertical travel is short - it's only about 10mm - but there is a very fine, calibrated depth adjustment.
On top, there's a tap wrench. Did this serve as an especially hazardous sort of finger-bashing flywheel? Did I need to make something safer? (I reckon I could.)
If I can't get it to work, at least I'll have an extra tap wrench.
Today I spent a few happy hours hiding from the sun and cleaning it all up a bit.
I was pleased to find that the dirt was all just superficial and came away easily.
The odd bits that were rusty were easy to clean up with a brass wire brush and a Garryflex block.
The main spindle rotates freely with no discernible play.
The main structure seems very neatly made, but the shaft changes from 35mm diameter and smooth down to about 34.5mm and rough and rusty. I can't see why; maybe it's because the shaft was salvaged from something else or maybe there was a design change or even a mistake. The collar on the table still grips ok on the smaller section.
There's a protective plastic shield around the motor which is a bit flimsy and split here and there. The brackets that hold it look a bit casual compared to the rest and at present there's nothing to hold the mains lead from being pulled out of a chocolate block connector. For the time being, all I did was to reassemble it as it was, to see if it works. If it does, then I could try to make a better cover with safer wiring. To mend the splits I applied some gaffer tape.
The motor has a comprehensive data plate, showing where to place the little jumpers for various supply voltages:
and they are installed to suit 220 v AC
That photo also shows a thin blue wire. I don't think it was connected to anything. It could have been caught up on the body of the switch or held between the wiring block, touching but not twisted onto the earth connection. (For now, I have insulated the end and not connected it at all.)
Having brushed off most of the dirt, I checked with a multimeter. I found a resistance of about 120 ohms across live and neutral, no shorts to earth, and that the double pole switch seemed to be ok.
I connected a new lead, plugged it in and turned it on. The motor ran sweetly with no nasty noises, no bad vibrations and no release of magic smoke.
After that I just cleaned a bit more dirt off and reassembled the motor guard and wiring.
It looks like I have a working piece of precision drilling equipment!
But I do have some more questions...
At present, there's nothing to connect the motor shaft to the pulley on the drill shaft, so I think I need to buy a loop of suitable heavy duty rubber band. That looks fairly easy; there are plenty of vendors on eBay with a wide range of sizes for little outlay. But do I need a pulley on the motor shaft?
I do have this one, in a box of useful bits, and I could make a bushing to reduce the size of the hole. The rubber band is just to show that the drive belt would clear the castings ok.
But there's no sign of a pulley having been on that shaft - no marring from a set screw. Maybe it should be used without one, like this?
Looking back at the motor plate, presumably "6300 U/min" means 6300 rpm? According to my copy of "The Amateur's Workshop" by Ian Bradley, HSS drill bits making holes in mild steel don't need to go above 2000 rpm for an 1/8" diameter. The motor shaft is 7.5mm diameter and the pulley is 30mm, so I'd be getting a 4:1 reduction, ie 1575 rpm, which sounds plenty to me. Does that look a likely arrangement? My randomly selected rubber band didn't rise up off the shaft, but it looks a bit odd having nothing on the top of the shaft to prevent that. What would be the right diameter of round belt to use, and would it be ok on a 7.5mm shaft?
All comments and suggestions will be gratefully received!
And thanks again to Andy B for his generosity.
of the corner of my workshop where several bench drills / drill stands squeeze in together beside the miniature bandsaw, he thought that what would go well there would be another drilling machine!
But not just an ordinary machine. Apparently he'd been buying some tools from the workshop of someone who had been a skilled model engineer and had picked this little thing up from where it had been abandoned, unloved in the dirt and detritus of the years.
What could I do to resist? Nothing! He's just so persuasive. Admittedly, there is some dirt on it
and some of the wiring was a bit crispy, and also too short to connect to a new plug!
but it looked like it could be revived, so I accepted it gratefully and brought it home.
Looking at it together, we noticed a few things, apart from the dirt.
It's probably been built by the previous owner, maybe with commercially available castings, or modified from another machine.
The vertical travel is short - it's only about 10mm - but there is a very fine, calibrated depth adjustment.
On top, there's a tap wrench. Did this serve as an especially hazardous sort of finger-bashing flywheel? Did I need to make something safer? (I reckon I could.)
If I can't get it to work, at least I'll have an extra tap wrench.
Today I spent a few happy hours hiding from the sun and cleaning it all up a bit.
I was pleased to find that the dirt was all just superficial and came away easily.
The odd bits that were rusty were easy to clean up with a brass wire brush and a Garryflex block.
The main spindle rotates freely with no discernible play.
The main structure seems very neatly made, but the shaft changes from 35mm diameter and smooth down to about 34.5mm and rough and rusty. I can't see why; maybe it's because the shaft was salvaged from something else or maybe there was a design change or even a mistake. The collar on the table still grips ok on the smaller section.
There's a protective plastic shield around the motor which is a bit flimsy and split here and there. The brackets that hold it look a bit casual compared to the rest and at present there's nothing to hold the mains lead from being pulled out of a chocolate block connector. For the time being, all I did was to reassemble it as it was, to see if it works. If it does, then I could try to make a better cover with safer wiring. To mend the splits I applied some gaffer tape.
The motor has a comprehensive data plate, showing where to place the little jumpers for various supply voltages:
and they are installed to suit 220 v AC
That photo also shows a thin blue wire. I don't think it was connected to anything. It could have been caught up on the body of the switch or held between the wiring block, touching but not twisted onto the earth connection. (For now, I have insulated the end and not connected it at all.)
Having brushed off most of the dirt, I checked with a multimeter. I found a resistance of about 120 ohms across live and neutral, no shorts to earth, and that the double pole switch seemed to be ok.
I connected a new lead, plugged it in and turned it on. The motor ran sweetly with no nasty noises, no bad vibrations and no release of magic smoke.
After that I just cleaned a bit more dirt off and reassembled the motor guard and wiring.
It looks like I have a working piece of precision drilling equipment!
But I do have some more questions...
At present, there's nothing to connect the motor shaft to the pulley on the drill shaft, so I think I need to buy a loop of suitable heavy duty rubber band. That looks fairly easy; there are plenty of vendors on eBay with a wide range of sizes for little outlay. But do I need a pulley on the motor shaft?
I do have this one, in a box of useful bits, and I could make a bushing to reduce the size of the hole. The rubber band is just to show that the drive belt would clear the castings ok.
But there's no sign of a pulley having been on that shaft - no marring from a set screw. Maybe it should be used without one, like this?
Looking back at the motor plate, presumably "6300 U/min" means 6300 rpm? According to my copy of "The Amateur's Workshop" by Ian Bradley, HSS drill bits making holes in mild steel don't need to go above 2000 rpm for an 1/8" diameter. The motor shaft is 7.5mm diameter and the pulley is 30mm, so I'd be getting a 4:1 reduction, ie 1575 rpm, which sounds plenty to me. Does that look a likely arrangement? My randomly selected rubber band didn't rise up off the shaft, but it looks a bit odd having nothing on the top of the shaft to prevent that. What would be the right diameter of round belt to use, and would it be ok on a 7.5mm shaft?
All comments and suggestions will be gratefully received!
And thanks again to Andy B for his generosity.
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What I'm really curious about, though, is who needs a drill with only 10mm of travel, and a very finely-set control over the depth of drilling? A watchmaker? A jeweller? A model engineer?
