Homemade?

[Isaac]

Traffer: That is slick. I could have used something like that recently when I have to make a couple small parts for an old Remington .22.

Thanks much for sharing.

Isaac

[NavyVet1959]

Well, what it is:
Two identical Harbor Freight Cheapo table top drill presses mounted on the same post, one on each end, facing each other. One has a 5/8" chuck the other has a 1/2" The first pics are of me aligning it with a piece of drill rod snugged up in both chucks. I use it as a lathe and a center drill (which a lathe does anyway). The use of dremel type grinding tools with diamond bits allows me to make many things with it. Including my own swaging dies swaging 22lr bullets (and eventually 9mm also). If I move one head out of the way I can put long things in the chuck if I hook up a roller of the back ends of them. The metal bracket that attaches them via a couple of 2x10's with the proper sized hole, is the back support from an old office chair. The wood is from a recycled water bed and a recycled sleeper sofa, The legs of the bench are from an old bar stool with pieces of the metal from the fold out bed reinforcing them. The drill rig can unbolt and then I have a bench for my loading/swaging press and also a bench for my vise. I had to build something very small to fit in our tiny living room which is what I use for a machine shop.

I had been wondering if I could do something similar, but with just one drill press for light lathe use. I was thinking of replacing the drill head with the small 3-jaw chuck from Harbor Freight.

http://www.harborfreight.com/2-inch-...ank-65132.html

And then having a fixed drill chuck mounted into the bed of the drill press.

If my local HF had carried that lathe chuck in stock, I probably would have given it a try.

[Traffer]

Wow. I didn't know HF had those. Gotta get me one. One problem of the drill press for a lathe is that the spindle shaft and bearing has a lot of slop in it. Spinning both ends helps keep center but still is a chore. Plus the HF drill presses are way too fast for lathe work. Even too fast for decent steel drilling. If one were to get that chuck you link to you would absolutely have to slow the thing down. Also that chuck has a morse taper shaft. The HF drill press has the reverse or opposite of the morse taper. It has a hole that is tapered. The cheap table top model that I have has a B16 chuck hole/taper. I got that 5/8" chuck on eBay for under $2. It isn't much bigger than the 1/2" that was on there but every little bit helps. I am looking for a slower motor cheap or a bigger pulley for the spindle to slow it down. I saw an old booklet for sale on eBay that was an instruction book for making a mill or lathe out of a drill press. I just saw the cover but it showed a great idea. They had a pulley on the drill press instead of a chuck. The pulley was on a short belt to a shaft and bearing that had a pair of bars parallel to the drill press post and it was fixed to the bars. That gave it the ability of having much greater side to side strength. That way you could run an end mill on it without any worries. I was thinking of rigging something like that up with a spindle from a car for strength and precision. Many car spindles have no play at all and are obviously very strong.
When I use this for a lathe, I only use grinding tools on it so there is not much pressure on those small crappy bearings.

I had been wondering if I could do something similar, but with just one drill press for light lathe use. I was thinking of replacing the drill head with the small 3-jaw chuck from Harbor Freight.

http://www.harborfreight.com/2-inch-...ank-65132.html

And then having a fixed drill chuck mounted into the bed of the drill press.

If my local HF had carried that lathe chuck in stock, I probably would have given it a try.

[bruce drake]

couldn't you set up a speed control dial box to slow down the drill motors?

[wonderwolf]

I think I have a MT1 taper adapter for my lathe, not sure I gotta look and see...something like that little chuck would be handy on the headstock. but even if it fit the tail stock I could still find a use for it.

[NavyVet1959]

Wow. I didn't know HF had those. Gotta get me one. One problem of the drill press for a lathe is that the spindle shaft and bearing has a lot of slop in it. Spinning both ends helps keep center but still is a chore. Plus the HF drill presses are way too fast for lathe work. Even too fast for decent steel drilling. If one were to get that chuck you link to you would absolutely have to slow the thing down. Also that chuck has a morse taper shaft. The HF drill press has the reverse or opposite of the morse taper. It has a hole that is tapered. The cheap table top model that I have has a B16 chuck hole/taper. I got that 5/8" chuck on eBay for under $2. It isn't much bigger than the 1/2" that was on there but every little bit helps. I am looking for a slower motor cheap or a bigger pulley for the spindle to slow it down. I saw an old booklet for sale on eBay that was an instruction book for making a mill or lathe out of a drill press. I just saw the cover but it showed a great idea. They had a pulley on the drill press instead of a chuck. The pulley was on a short belt to a shaft and bearing that had a pair of bars parallel to the drill press post and it was fixed to the bars. That gave it the ability of having much greater side to side strength. That way you could run an end mill on it without any worries. I was thinking of rigging something like that up with a spindle from a car for strength and precision. Many car spindles have no play at all and are obviously very strong.
When I use this for a lathe, I only use grinding tools on it so there is not much pressure on those small crappy bearings.

I believe my drill press is this one:

http://www.sears.com/craftsman-10inc...t-pdp-buy-cta#

If so, then it has 5 speeds, ranging from 680- to 3,150 RPMs.

I suspect for a lot of the stuff that I am tempted to use my drill press for a lathe for, a wood lathe could be made to do it a lot easier. Of course, I don't have one of those either...

I saw a one of the Harbor Freight 9x20 mini metal lathes on Craigslist today for $350 that I thought was worthwhile. I sent him a text message, but he already had something coming to get it. The ad was just 2 hours old when I saw it and sent the text message.

[Traffer]

I tried a dimmer but I am not much of an electrician. It did not work. I guess there is a way to do it but it is beyond me.

couldn't you set up a speed control dial box to slow down the drill motors?

[NavyVet1959]

I think I have a MT1 taper adapter for my lathe, not sure I gotta look and see...something like that little chuck would be handy on the headstock. but even if it fit the tail stock I could still find a use for it.

According to what I can find on the web (https://www.craftsman.com/products/c...ess-with-laser), mine has a JT33 taper.

Taper	Large End	Small End	Length	Taper/ Foot	Taper/ Inch	Angle From Center
#0	0.2500	0.2284	0.44	.5915	.0493	1.4117
#1	0.3840	0.3334	0.66	.9251	.0771	2.2074
#2	0.5590	0.4876	0.88	.9786	.0816	2.3350
#2 Short	0.5488	0.4876	0.75	.9786	.0816	2.3350
#3	0.8110	0.7461	1.22	.6390	.0532	1.5251
#4	1.1240	1.0372	1.66	.6289	.0524	1.5009
#5	1.4130	1.3161	1.88	.6201	.0517	1.4801
#6	0.6760	0.6241	1.00	.6229	.0519	1.4868
#33	0.6240	0.5605	1.00	.7619	.0635	1.8184

But the HF lathe chuck is a MT1...

Morse Taper number	Taper	A	B (max)	C (max)	D (max)	E (max)	F	G	H	J	K
0	1:19.212	9.045	56.5	59.5	10.5	6	4	1	3	3.9	1° 29' 26"
1	1:20.047	12.065	62	65.5	13	8.7	5	1.2	3.5	5.2	1° 25' 43"
2	1:20.020	17.780	75	80	16	13.5	6	1.6	5	6.3	1° 25' 50"
3	1:19.922	23.825	94	99	20	18.5	7	2	5	7.9	1° 26' 16"
4	1:19.254	31.267	117.5	124	24	24.5	8	2.5	6.5	11.9	1° 29' 15"
5	1:19.002	44.399	149.5	156	29	35.7	10	3	6.5	15.9	1° 30' 26"
6	1:19.180	63.348	210	218	40	51	13	4	8	19	1° 29' 36"
7	1:19.231	83.058	285.75	294.1	34.9	-	-	19.05	-	19	1° 29' 22"

I'm thinking I would need something like this...

https://www.kmstools.com/magnum-mors...-to-jt33-18490

Except that I would need a male JT33 one one end and a female MT1 on the other end. The above one has male on both ends.

[Traffer]

The HF drill press that I have has a "B" taper, B16. I also have a B18 Chuck that was sent to me by mistake. It is the female version of the MT taper.

B-series tapers are a DIN standard typically used for fitting chucks on their arbors, like the older Jacobs taper series. Each taper in the B-series is effectively the small or large end of a Morse taper:
B10 = small end of MT1B12 = large end of MT1B16 = small end of MT2B18 = large end of MT2B22 = small end of MT3B24 = Large end of MT3The number after the B is the diameter of the large end of the taper to the nearest mm, and 'about' 1mm larger than the large end of the socket (~2mm in the case of B22 and B24)

[NavyVet1959]

The HF drill press that I have has a "B" taper, B16. I also have a B18 Chuck that was sent to me by mistake. It is the female version of the MT taper.

B-series tapers are a DIN standard typically used for fitting chucks on their arbors, like the older Jacobs taper series. Each taper in the B-series is effectively the small or large end of a Morse taper:
B10 = small end of MT1B12 = large end of MT1B16 = small end of MT2B18 = large end of MT2B22 = small end of MT3B24 = Large end of MT3The number after the B is the diameter of the large end of the taper to the nearest mm, and 'about' 1mm larger than the large end of the socket (~2mm in the case of B22 and B24)

I'm thinking that I need to remove the chuck from my drill press and measure it to see what it really is instead of relying on what I see on the web. Besides, I wasn't paying that much attention when I put the machine together, so at that point, I can't even guarantee that the drill chuck has a male taper on it. And it's entirely possible that the model drill press that I bought has changed the type of taper it uses since I bought it.

[jdh47]

I may get the boot for this but I don't think it is productive to try doing anything with the drill press unless it involves drilling. They are not made for side loads and the quill bearings will take a beating. You can build a jack shaft to slow the speeds or just replace the motor with a DC motor and control and have variable speed but I would not try to do any milling or anything else that involves a side load. The thing to look out for on a drill press or any other metal working machine is chuck run out. Less run out means more precision.

The mini lathe is the thing to look out for and they are plentiful. They come up from time to time on craigslist and don't last long. People buy them and soon want to upgrade to something bigger. I have seen some HF mill drills go pretty cheap on craigslist recently. Varmint Al has a great tutorial on his website about what he did to his mini lathe. He did a great job of making the little lathe do great work.

That's my take on it for what it's worth.

Joe

[Traffer]

That is a good post. Some do not know about the side load issue or the runout issue. I could not think of the proper terms when I spoke of them earlier. I have been looking for a lathe now for over a year (in my price range) I found one for $200 but the guy backed out of the deal when I showed up to buy it. The two drill presses that I am using in the pics are $54.99 apiece at Harbor Freight. I may ruin the spindle bearings or some other part on them but for that money they are doing well beyond what I might have wished. I spoke earlier about a booklet that was published 1940-1950ish that had instructions on how to modify a drill press to make it capable of milling work. I was only able to see the pic on the front of the book but it showed the press with a pulley where the chuck would normally be the pulley was connected to another parallel shaft that was braced for side loads. It looked simple. I wish I had that book. I would like to do exactly that.
I just finished the center bore of a new swaging die that I am making. I did it with the double drill set up. As I said earlier it is still not an easy process but I got a good center hole now. This rig will not replace a lathe because of the bearing side load issue and the slop issue with the centering. But it is better than nothing if you cannot afford to shell out the kind of money needed for a lathe. I have been contemplating using a spindle from a truck or car to make the head stock spindle of a lathe. Any ideas about that, anyone? I believe there are rear spindles that are hollow that would allow a long piece of stock to fit. Like say a barrel, maybe?
Just a reminder to those who are thinking about putting the little 2" chuck that has it's link in post #682 by navyvet. Check the speed of your drill press. I wouldn't run that chuck over 150 yp 200 hundred rpm on a small drill press. And preferably get the speed down to 100 rpm or slower. (Just my opinion)

I may get the boot for this but I don't think it is productive to try doing anything with the drill press unless it involves drilling. They are not made for side loads and the quill bearings will take a beating. You can build a jack shaft to slow the speeds or just replace the motor with a DC motor and control and have variable speed but I would not try to do any milling or anything else that involves a side load. The thing to look out for on a drill press or any other metal working machine is chuck run out. Less run out means more precision.

The mini lathe is the thing to look out for and they are plentiful. They come up from time to time on craigslist and don't last long. People buy them and soon want to upgrade to something bigger. I have seen some HF mill drills go pretty cheap on craigslist recently. Varmint Al has a great tutorial on his website about what he did to his mini lathe. He did a great job of making the little lathe do great work.

That's my take on it for what it's worth.

Joe

[NavyVet1959]

Well, I eventually was able to remove the chuck from my drill press tonight. I could not find any sort of keyway where you hammer a triangular piece of metal into it in order to knock the chuck out. So, I had to try hitting on the edge of the chuck via a piece of hardwood on the edge of the chuck and a hammer hitting the hardwood.. The shaft of the drill press overlaps the chuck somewhat, so I could not get a good angle on it. At best, I could hit it at a 45 degree angle and just the edge of the board was touching it. I ended up splintering all 8 edges on the small square piece of wood that I was using as a punch, but the chuck would not move. I even tried chucking up a bolt and running it through the drill press table to try to use the gearing of the drill press itself to pull the chuck off. That didn't work either. As a last resort, I took a piece of 1/2" square tubing that was laying nearby and used it as a punch. Eventually that worked, but it left two very noticeable notches in the top of the chuck. The chuck still seems to turn acceptably, so I guess that was just some lightweight cosmetic trim piece on the exterior of the chuck.

End result is that the chuck has a female socket and the drill press has the male shaft portion. I measured the portion on the drill press and it seems to conform to the JT33 specification.

So, to use that lathe chuck head from HF, I would need an adapter with a female JT33 on one end and a female MT1 on the other end. So far, I haven't seen any such thing on any of the sites that I've looked.

[Traffer]

NavyVet1959:
Your chuck is the same as mine. With the female end in the chuck. It is probably either a B16 or a B18. You can buy them on eBay for under $20 up to 5/8". They have B16 and B18 in 5/8" or 1/2". The very edge of the mouth of the B18 is 18mm and the B16 is 16mm.
I have been looking for an adapter to use a male type of chuck myself. The problem is the length of the shafts.
I found that the best way to get the chuck off is to somehow put as much downward pressure on the chuck as possible by using a pry bar or stick jammed in somewhere and at the same time tapping on the side of the chuck in different areas with a less than very hard hammer. I don't recall if I ever used a rubber hammer but I definitely have used a lead hammer. I just keep tapping until it pops off. It is not easy and it puts the shaft bearings in danger of being damaged. I have noticed the my old 1/2" chuck is cracked on the ring where the teeth are. I probably broke it when doing the removal. I was wondering why it had a "wandering center" the cracked ring was responsible. Here are a couple of links to the ones on eBay. (they are even the same brand as the HF drill chucks.
This is a B16 1/2" chuck: http://www.ebay.com/itm/KeyType-1-5-...MAAOSwA3dYPOcN
This is a B18 5/8" chuck: http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-16mm-Capac...4AAOSwMVdYDwVJ
I did not see any B16 5/8" chucks on eBay at this time. (that is the bigger chuck in the picture of the twin presses I posted).
They have many JT shaft to B16 and B18 conversion shafts on eBay but none the other way around B16 to JT1,2or 3. If you have damaged your chuck and it is indeed a B16, you can get a replacement from that first link.

[NavyVet1959]

I have been looking for an adapter to use a male type of chuck myself. The problem is the length of the shafts.

Yeah, that is something that I was concerned about. The combination would be long and as such, it would support even less of a side load. I was mainly wanting this for being able to create new expanding plugs for either my Dillon or Lee presses. Something like the Lyman "M" dies. With the Dillon, it would be a new powder funnel and with the Lee, it would be a new insert in the Powder Through Expander Die. I also wanted to be able to spin a bullet in the upper chuck and put the drill bit in the bottom chuck so that I could create a truly centered hole for things like hollowpoints.

But, it looks like I won't need to worry about trying to somehow make this work. I stumbled across a Grizzly 7x14 lathe on Craigslist the morning for $400 and I'm going to pick it up this evening. The seller is only about 15 minutes away from my house which is an added bonus. I would have liked to have come across one of the old classic lathes that was still in good shape from back in the 1940s and such like the Atlas, LeBlond, Colchester, South Port, etc, but I just haven't had any luck finding one of those for what I considered a reasonable price and which has a reasonable amount of tooling included with it.

[Traffer]

You will get a much easier and better center on a lathe. I have a process figured out to make center with my tools but still miss center about half the time. That is about as good of a price as you will find for a lathe, I think. Occasionally one comes up as a deal but very very rarely. I found one for $200 that was about 8"x 24" but the guy reneged on me when I was about to leave to get it. The only other deals I see are for big lathes. If I had more money I would buy one. I think I saw a small engine lathe on Craigs List for under $700. That would have been a score. Good luck.
here it is. been there for over a month.
http://wausau.craigslist.org/tls/5858627090.html

[NavyVet1959]

You will get a much easier and better center on a lathe. I have a process figured out to make center with my tools but still miss center about half the time. That is about as good of a price as you will find for a lathe, I think. Occasionally one comes up as a deal but very very rarely. I found one for $200 that was about 8"x 24" but the guy reneged on me when I was about to leave to get it. The only other deals I see are for big lathes. If I had more money I would buy one. I think I saw a small engine lathe on Craigs List for under $700. That would have been a score. Good luck.
here it is. been there for over a month.
http://wausau.craigslist.org/tls/5858627090.html

I've seen a couple of really good deals on the Craigslist here, but I just didn't see them quick enough. Sometimes, you see one and the guy never returns your email, so I have to wonder if it is someone harvesting email addresses for spam or whatever.

I picked up the Grizzly last night and moved it to my reloading "shack".



It's possible for one person to carry it, but there's enough angular pieces sticking out that it is difficult to do it without something jabbing you in the wrong place.

And my first accomplishment was hollowpointing a bullet:



I set my goal pretty low for a first lathe attempt.

I didn't have a center drill countersink, so given the length that my drill bit was extended from the quill, it flexed a bit, so the center hole is not *perfectly* centered, but it was a lot better than any of my attempts with a drill press. I'll need to stop by HF today and pickup up a center drill countersink.

http://www.harborfreight.com/center-...-pc-60381.html

I'm thinking that HF center drill countersink would make a good hollowpoint just by itself.

I then grabbed a small chunk of 1.5" PVC pipe and experimented around with it since it was all I had handy. I guess it's now time to start reading the manual.

[jdh47]

You can do the same thing with just a drill press. you have to make a jig with an old chuck [collet chuck would be pretty precise] mounted onto a plate bolted to the press table on centers with the drill chuck. Just insert the bullet and drill to the desired depth.

I made a depth stop for my old Powermatic drill press that allows me to set the depth and stop at the same place every time. A lot can be done with a good drill press but it is not really made for turning like a lathe is or milling like a real mill.

The old patternmaker that taught me much of what I think I know had an attachment he made for his Clausing drill press that fit [clamped] on the quill and essentially was another quill complete with bearings and all. It was driven by the drill press spindle. It used a small collet set up and allowed him to do light milling with the drill press while saving the bearings. That was only on very small light duty work. For heavier stuff he used his mill drill. One must be pretty creative with small machinery but pretty good work can be done.

The small HF type mini lathes are great for the home hobbyist and can be found for pretty reasonable. You can do a lot reloading related stuff on a small lathe. It takes time to acquire tooling and stuff but it can be done and it's all a learning process. I would advise to expand your search to different craigslist locals within driving distance. Patience will be rewarded.

Joe

[Traffer]

It sounds like you have knowledge and experience that can help us all here. Please keep sharing this stuff with us. Interesting about the centering setup you describe. I have been centering in a similar way. I found an old pulley with a ball bearing in it that the bottom of a chuck fit into nicely. I let it be loose on the table of the press and self align itself to center once the press was spinning. When drilling center I would hold it in my hand with a glove and let it spin a bit with the drill ... maybe 1/4 of the speed of the drill. This allowed me to keep the hole centered all the way through. I have hollowed out 3/32" nails like that. Actually I am just starting to get the same precision with the double ended drill press set up that I rigged up. I know the description of how this is done is pretty shabby. I will try to get some pictures of the process so people can duplicate it. All you need is a pulley with a good bearing and an extra drill chuck to accomplish it. (I save all the chucks from old discarded drills that I have or find)

You can do the same thing with just a drill press. you have to make a jig with an old chuck [collet chuck would be pretty precise] mounted onto a plate bolted to the press table on centers with the drill chuck. Just insert the bullet and drill to the desired depth.

I made a depth stop for my old Powermatic drill press that allows me to set the depth and stop at the same place every time. A lot can be done with a good drill press but it is not really made for turning like a lathe is or milling like a real mill.

The old patternmaker that taught me much of what I think I know had an attachment he made for his Clausing drill press that fit [clamped] on the quill and essentially was another quill complete with bearings and all. It was driven by the drill press spindle. It used a small collet set up and allowed him to do light milling with the drill press while saving the bearings. That was only on very small light duty work. For heavier stuff he used his mill drill. One must be pretty creative with small machinery but pretty good work can be done.

The small HF type mini lathes are great for the home hobbyist and can be found for pretty reasonable. You can do a lot reloading related stuff on a small lathe. It takes time to acquire tooling and stuff but it can be done and it's all a learning process. I would advise to expand your search to different craigslist locals within driving distance. Patience will be rewarded.

Joe

[Traffer]

Good for you man. Nothing like a new toy for Christmas. I hope you get to make lots of cool stuff.
Your statement about "now read the manual" reminded me of a story: (not to mean that you shouldn't read the manual, it just reminded me of this)
In the mid 80's I worked for a shop owned by a Porsche expert. When he hired me he took me around the shop. One whole wall of the shop had what seemed to be every shop manual ever printed. He said "here are the shop manuals for just about everything you will ever work on. I don't want to EVER see you reading one." I laughed. He said "No, seriously! If you can't figure something out ask somebody else. If you all can't still figure it out come and see me. If I don't know, then we will look in the manual." I never saw anyone look in those books while I worked there.

I've seen a couple of really good deals on the Craigslist here, but I just didn't see them quick enough. Sometimes, you see one and the guy never returns your email, so I have to wonder if it is someone harvesting email addresses for spam or whatever.

I picked up the Grizzly last night and moved it to my reloading "shack".



It's possible for one person to carry it, but there's enough angular pieces sticking out that it is difficult to do it without something jabbing you in the wrong place.

And my first accomplishment was hollowpointing a bullet:



I set my goal pretty low for a first lathe attempt.

I didn't have a center drill countersink, so given the length that my drill bit was extended from the quill, it flexed a bit, so the center hole is not *perfectly* centered, but it was a lot better than any of my attempts with a drill press. I'll need to stop by HF today and pickup up a center drill countersink.

http://www.harborfreight.com/center-...-pc-60381.html

I'm thinking that HF center drill countersink would make a good hollowpoint just by itself.

I then grabbed a small chunk of 1.5" PVC pipe and experimented around with it since it was all I had handy. I guess it's now time to start reading the manual.