How to properly use a drill press?

I am so stoked. I had been fishing craigslist for a while with a want ad asking for a broken drill press that I could repair. After a couple of months I got a call for one. The return spring that raises it back up is broke and the knob you tighten to keep the platform in place is missing. That's it. This is a bench model, but its every bit as big as a floor standing ones, just a little shorter. 5/8" chuck. I forgot how many speeds. The guy was only asking $25. After I drove to his place we got to talking and he was an old hot rodder himself. He was telling me he used to have a 32 Ford truck with 50 Olds motor in it in the 60's. He also had a 55 Chevy Nomad he had since new he just sold a couple of years ago. He is retired and into wood working now and didn't need the press anymore. I just asked him again what he was asking because I was thinking the $25 was awfully cheap and thought maybe I misunderstood. He gave it to me for $20!

I have questions. These presses have several speeds but I've never known what is the proper speed for a job. Could some machinists on here explain how to choose the proper speed for the material I'm drilling? What drill bit types work best at certain speeds? I've always just had one set at a medium speed to do everything.

 

You'll need to let the chip formation tell you how to adjust your speed and force. You want steady chip production, but not strands that are inches long.

Congrats on the purchase BTW. If you don't have one, consider a drill doctor bit sharpener. The base model is down to like $40 at Lowes. You'll wonder how you lived without it.

If you don't have a tooling vice that'll clamp to the surface, consider that too.

 

This is essential as far as I'm concerned. Trying to hold a piece while drilling is asking to have your hand or chest cut wide open.

Buy a good vise that can be affixed to the drill press. Nobody wants the nickname "Stumpy".

 

Every bit size and material composition have an optimum drill speed expressed in RPMs. Most are much slower than you think. There are tables in commonly available machinest's handbooks and tables are also found in the instructions that come with drills. Here is an example: http://cs.jhu.edu/~marcin/conceptcatcher/me155/Drill%20Press.pdf .

Hole saws need very slow speeds for optimum performance. Recommended speeds are usually printed on the package they come in. I note the recommended speed on my hole saws with a Sharpie pen. In most cases, recommended hole saw speeds are less than the slowest speed I can set on my press.

If you have to chose between a speed setting that is to fast and one that is to slow you should go slow.

You can significantly improve the life of your bits and saws by using cutting and tapping oil. If you run out you can use motor oil or automatic transmission fluid. Oil is messy. Setting your table top drill in some kind of drip pan will keep the mess in one place. And bolt your press down.

 

Put a foot operated switch on it. You can't imagine how hard it is to hold onto a vise, the drill handle AND try to switch off the motor with your forehead when the drill gets stuck.

 

I always use the slowest speed available for metal. Saves on drill bits and is a little safer. Use plenty of oil. (crankcase drain oil works as good as anything else). .....Bob

 

one of the hardest things to drill is thin metal, buy a step bit. i keep my bench grinder next to my drill press and sharpen all my own bits, its not that hard and alot faster then setting up a drill doc. but if your not interested in learning to sharpen bits then buy the doc. never wear gloves or loose cloths when using your press, they can get caught and wind around the bit and pull your whole hand or arm in. i like to keep my belts set so if it catches it stops. i set my table height so that the bit ends up about 1/8" above what it is i`m drilling, saves time. dont put to much tension on your return spring, you want it to return but not slam against its stop as it will snap the teeth off.

 

Two other things; first, always use pilot holes and gradually increase to your finished hole dia. 2nd always champher your hole edges with a counter sink. Your fingers will thank you later on while working with the drilled metal, it also lends a much more finished look to your prodject.

 

you can learn an awful lot from watching the chips

 

Pilot holes & step drilling are vastly overated.
If you attempt to drill a hole with the previous hole any bigger than the diameter of the center point of the bit, the only point of contact is a razor thin point on the cutting edge of the bit & the PSI on that edge will measure in the hundreds of thousands & instantly overheat the point of contact.
Ask any drill mfr. & they will confirm this. I used to work for one is how I found this out--that & ruining a bunch of bits !!

 

Anytime you plan to drill sheetmetal or similar thin stock, clamp it down!
The drill may turn it into a cutting "disk" if the bit grabs hold of the hole.

 

Where would I find such a thing? Sounds like a good idea. Anything online? There are not any industrial suppliers in my area.

 

Absolutely. I think this is one of the biggest mistakes (second to "faster is better" when drilling metal) people make. Tiny pilot holes (in comparison the the final desired hole) are helpful, large ones are a big problem. There is a formula for this, but I forget it. I only use a pilot hole for drilling holes around 3/8 and bigger, and use a 1/16th" bit for that, and then go immediately to the full desired size bit. For anything under 3/8, just a quich tap with a center punch, and thats it.

A major part is the quality of the drills too. I like Champion Cutting tool, Chicago Latrobe, and Precision Twist brand drills, but they are going to cost you. Dont waste your money on the junk that is sold under Dewalt, Bosh, Milwaukee, etc at Home Depot. These are just cheap imported drills, that dont last. A good 29 piece set of HSS drills in 1/16th"-1/2" in 64th will run you $100-150, but if you follow all of the above procedures, and treat them with repect, they will last a long time.

When you use a real quality drill bit for the first time, with the proper speed and feed rate, you will never go back to junk drill sets from the hardware store again!

 

go to any sewing machine shop they have a foot switch that has a plug to use in sewing machine cabinets plug drill press into the footswitch and foot switch into the power source of choice.also check junk places if you see old sewing machines or cabinets I goty several of these swithches at the local trash transfer station

 

Steve can answer any question you have.

 

Memorise what Ol'Fueler wrote, it's gospil. The pilot should only be a big as the center point of your finish bit. Grangers or MSC or McMaster-Carr has foot peddles too, if you can't find a used one. I have foot control on both my drill presses AND my belt sander. You wouldn't want to know why, kind of looked like a Signal 30 film from high school.

 

I was told that the pilot hole should only be a maximum of half the finished hole diameter. For example if you wanted to drill a hole that was 1/2" you could set up 1/8", 1/4" and finally to 1/2".

 

pilot holes work great when your using larger bits, they only need to be as large as the web of the bit your using. someone said step bits are not helpfull, the first time you try and dill a 3/4" hole in 16ga with a standard bit you will think different. one other thing is to always push your chuck key upwards when installing or removing your bits, this keeps your chuck from having the teeth chewed off, the reason is you will be pressing the key into the teeth.

 

Wow Bib - great link. That is the most complete 'simple' chart of speeds I have seen.
Should be laminated to the wall behind every drill press
As was said, not all drill presses will go slow enough for certain things. If you look at the pulleys on your press, you will see they either come off in 2 big peices (all of the pulleys on one shaft are 1 peice) or they come apart seperately. The replacement pulley stacks for a small bandsaw (usually 2-3 speeds) for different types of materials are fairly cheap, and often the same shaft size (if not, you have a drill press...), so you can get 1 piece stack combos for various speed ranges, and also mix and match. Keep in mind the motors may be different, so don't assume the speed ratings for a given set will be the same on your press. Also, some presses use the same 3 pulley sizes on both shafts, but some do not, meaning swithing the stacks from one shaft to the other will change the RPM range. You will have to calculate the ratios and then the RPMs, and find a way of keeping track of what combos give you what speeds. Once that's done, changing the pulleys is usually not a big hassle. Of course, not all presses have a big enough motor for high speed, as speed increses reduce the available torque.
Grandpa made super low ratios using big pulleys off of something else (I'm guessing a tractor) to make super-low speeds for big holes. He just drilled and tapped the top of the original cast pulley sets for the bolt-on pulleys to sit on top. You can also buy individual pulleys from places like Grainger and Kaman Bearing.
If you change/ modify the pulley stack, and the safety cover won't fit, modify it or make a new one so that you still have some protection. They have gaurds for a reason.

 

You're getting some good advice here. Most box-store presses are set up for wood-working. They spin too fast for real men who work metal. Most of your metal drilling will need to be done at the slowest speed which will probably still be faster than it should be for large holes but should be fine for holes under 1/4".

Here are my basic rules (as learned from a tool & die maker mentor)

1. Set up is important - your table must be true. This will require some work (see mini-how-to below)
2. "Slow and cool" is your mantra. If a bit chatters it's spinning WAY TO FAST. Always use cutting fluid. A little goes a long way. You'll drill faster and your bits will stay sharp much much longer. If your cutting fluid smokes you're going way to fast!
3. Always center-punch or spot-drill (a short rigid bit for accurately starting a hole) before drilling your pilot hole. This does several things. First it starts the hole in the intended location. Second, it insures that the hole doesn't veer off at an angle when you start drilling your pilot hole. Clear the chips often by lifting the drill out of the hole. A chip can get in the bottom of the hole and the drill will spin on it like a bearing. If the cutting stops find out why - don't just apply pressure - you'll overheat and ruin the bit.
4. Key concept: A drill can not remove material from the center of a hole. Thats why you always use a small drill to make a pilot hole. See above comments from others about size of pilot hole with regard to size of web on final drill.
5. Wear eye protection.
6. Swarf (the chips and debris) can be very sharp. I've got scars from swarf cuts. Use caution.

-Ben

 

Setup: Table must be flat!
To get good holes your table needs to be square (90 degrees to the quill). If you were doing really precice work you would use a dial indicator, but for shade-tree stuff there's a real easy method.

1. Get a piece of stiff wire and bend it into the shape of a 'Z'.
2. Unplug the drillpress! This procedure is all done by hand. NO POWER.
3. Place the wire in your drill chuck. Adjust the size of the 'Z' such that the end of the wire pointing down toward the table can be rotated around without extending beyond the edge of the table. It should make full circles without falling off the table edge.
4. Adjust the height of the table so the wire just touches the table ever so slightly.
5. Slowy rotate the chuck by hand so the wire moves around the table perimeter in a circle.
6. Watch the interface between the end of the wire and the table. Note where the wire digs into the table or where a gap forms.
7. Using step 6 as a guide, adjust the side-to-side tilt adjustment of the table to get it perfectly square. If front-to-back adjustment is needed you'll have to use shims between the table and it's mount. I use tin-foil for this.

When properly adjusted you'll get holes that are square to the workpiece surface and when drilling a series of holes everything will fit together better.

-Ben

 

There ar times when step drilling is a necessity - so do yourself a favor and ignor those who tell you it's a bad idea -like everything there's a time and place.

 

Just to throw in my two cents, I machine things for a living and have picked up a few things on the drill press.

We always use what we call a "center drill" to spot holes on location and make a nice starting point on center for any hole. What we call a center drill is actually a combination drill, drill and countersink. They come in various sizes which is handy depending on what size hole you are going to drill. We punch the location first and then spot the hole with the center drill. This makes a nice pilot to get the real drill started and the countersink makes a nice surface for the tip of the drill to contact and center itself up, without the sharp corner of a drilled pilot hole.

Here's a picture of what I am talking about.



The little drill tip makes a nice pilot and the tapered countersink makes a nice starting surface for the drill tip.

I started using a step drill for sheetmetal this year and wonder why I waited so long. Spun slowly it does a great job, and seemingly much safer with less grabbing and distorting.

I also tap holes in a drillpress, 1/4 inch and larger. It takes a little practice. You need to remember to keep pressing down on the work once the tap starts to keep the work down on the table. You hold the work down this way, of course clamped in a vice with something to prevent it from being able to spin if the tap should grab that much. Then as you back the tap out in reverse you continue to push downward so that the work doesn't get lifted from the table. You can never have too much cutting oil.

Steve