Dedicated drill press

[JPG]

See second pix.

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/viewt ... #post41342

[Beave2012]

Are the legs 'splayed' out? Are the castings clamped correctly to the 'bench' tubes?

OK so the legs were kind of leaning outwards. and the castings clamped to the bench tubes correctly, except the castings were bad. This is why even before i modified it, it seemed a bit too easy to move when it was on the floor.. it had some glide to it.

The legs pushed outwards allowed more pressure on the wheels and allowed it to move a bit. That's why I thought I had to adjust the wheels.

So after tinkering with it for a while and wondering why my tubes didn't run parallel, I decided made sure it wasn't the tubes, and found that the casting grooves that align the tubes inside the base were different by a hair and 2 of the 4 didn't auto line up centered in the hole, there was some perfectly centered, and others that "crushed the top" of the hole. So a few poor innocent washers were persuaded to shim the tubes into center positions, and on the other side one of the tubes couldn't go past a certain point or it totally pushed the entire side out of alignment. So the whole base got lengthened in order to not have to cut the tubes shorter at 1 AM.

So after a some washer shims and adjusting length inside castings, it finally is level and the wheels are fine. The entire press now sits almost perfectly vertical (extremely slightly inwards still, but you can't tell w/o a level).

Now I have a deeper drill press than I originally wanted, however I can use the table extension now with it, so I have a larger table for the press, its just slightly off so i can't align it with the hole in the center of the main table for that (if the two tables are touching anyways). So the larger table is nice, but i now reach farther which isn't as nice. So good or bad that this happened who knows.

Thanks for the assistance troubleshooting JPG.

[Beave2012]

See second pix.

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/viewt ... #post41342

Yeah I see the stop your talking about and I think that was one issue with one side, I still cant figure out why the other side had drastically different angled tubes to need the washers though...

However, considering the shape of the thing when I got it and how much "tinkering" the last owner had done with it, nothing would surprise me.

[tomsalwasser]

So I based my dedicated drill press on jsburger's design in another post.

Turned out nice. I will need to adjust the wheels a bit but seems stable and the leftover tubes will allow me to turn it into a shorty if I so desire.

As for now it fits right in.

Hey Beave, your drill press looks great. I have a Shopsmith dedicated drill press of sorts. I put an older SS in drill press mode a few years ago and have not taken it down since. But I really could use the space so I need to cut it down. Can you point me to the design in the previous post that you refer to? Thank you!

Tom

[Beave2012]

Hey Beave, your drill press looks great. I have a Shopsmith dedicated drill press of sorts. I put an older SS in drill press mode a few years ago and have not taken it down since. But I really could use the space so I need to cut it down. Can you point me to the design in the previous post that you refer to? Thank you!

Tom

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/woodw ... 16948.html

Its not all that hard, just cut lower way tubes to 18", and rotate the headstock & table 180 degrees on the upper tubes... lock into place and good to go. Just make sure you ensure your reassembled lower base is properly set up or you will run into a leaning one like I originally did. Save the rest of the tubes btw, can use those for a shorty if you ever want to lower it back down and swap out the way tubes (and cut 18" off the uppers at that point, at this point I like the extra height).

[JPG]

Hey Beave, your drill press looks great. I have a Shopsmith dedicated drill press of sorts. I put an older SS in drill press mode a few years ago and have not taken it down since. But I really could use the space so I need to cut it down. Can you point me to the design in the previous post that you refer to? Thank you!

Tom

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/woodw ... 16948.html

Its not all that hard, just cut lower way tubes to 18", and rotate the headstock & table 180 degrees on the upper tubes... lock into place and good to go. Just make sure you ensure your reassembled lower base is properly set up or you will run into a leaning one like I originally did. Save the rest of the tubes btw, can use those for a shorty if you ever want to lower it back down and swap out the way tubes (and cut 18" off the uppers at that point, at this point I like the extra height).

Lower bench tubes that is!