My heart is filled with joy today! That special joy of acquiring a new antique machine tool! Because, as you've seen, I still don't have enough drill presses....
This appeared on CraigsList last night. For sale near me, by a man I met recently. He runs a home business restoring and reselling small antique machine tools. It's his passion too. He visited my shop a month ago, and we obviously talked for hours.
It's a 1925 Avey No.1 Sensitive Drill. In the terminology of the day, a Sensitive Drill is a special kind of drill press made for drilling tiny holes in metal.
It's a bench top drill press, with a heavy cast iron frame. It weighs about 220 lbs. A very strong spindle, with a tiny little 1/4" Jacobs chuck. It's designed for drilling holes smaller than 1/8". It'll drill a #60 or smaller hole, no problem, in steel!
The weight of the spindle is counter-balanced by that rocker arm and an actual counterweight down inside the column. And notice the short little quill feed arm. This machine has a very delicate Sensitive feel to the amount of down pressure you apply to the drill bit.
The spindle is driven at a moderately high speed of about 2000 rpm by a flat belt that turns over two staggered idlers. That originally would have been a leather belt, but that's a synthetic fiber belt on there now. The small crank handle on the front finely adjusts the belt tension. You can adjust the point where it will slip as a safety clutch to help prevent snapping tiny drill bits.
The motor on the back isn't original, although it's from the '50's. This machine would have originally had an idler pulley back there, and another leather belt going up to the line shaft on the ceiling.
Overall, this drill press is in beautiful condition. That's the original paint. James did a few mechanical repairs on it, and it's in full running condition. It needs a switch to be wired in. I may make up a special rolling wooden base for it. I paid him $150 for it, a bargain.
You know all those hundreds of tiny 2mm stainless pins that I use in my truss rods? I have to drill 2mm holes crosswise through brass and stainless rod stock in every one. Right now, I do that with a cheap little import drill press, and it's annoying.
This is the machine for that job.
But they would mount them up on the ceiling, out of reach. With a long greasy wooden handle hanging down from the knife switch.
