Vintage Craftsman Drill Press - Repairable?

[Gilmourisgod]

I actually DO need a hoist to get my outboard engine off the transom this year. The hydraulic engine lift sh*t the bed in the DOWN position, and the relief valve is welded in with corrosion. Good times! “Honey, I bought a 4 ton hoist for my 200lb engine because.... ‘Murica.

 

[BJMtz]

I throw another plug out there for OWWM/Vintage Machinery. When I was searching for an old drill press I posted a thread there and someone local hit me up and sold me a machine.
Before and after pics:

 

[tekhedd]

I have nothing to add other than "OMG that's totally my grandpa's drill press". Suddenly I'm back in the basement in Ohio for a second. Freaky.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Heh, another hobby to obsess over in the making...... "Honey, I bought a 1932 Boyce/Crane Jointer Planer, it weighs 2,300 lbs., so I need to rent a hoist...."

Hey, are you poking fun at me???

I actually do have a 1938 Boice-Crane Planer, but it weighs only 400 lbs. You may be thinking of my 1938 Baxter D Whitney No. 66 tablesaw, which weighs about 2200 lbs.

When I moved my shop 7 years ago, it took 54 truckloads, and about 34 tons total. I have a small problem with collecting antique machinery. But it's under control now.

And yes, I have a crane. It's necessary when you play with machines.

And no, I don't have a wife!

 

[Bruce Johnson]

To answer your original post, yes, those King-Seeley drill presses are nice old machines. Well worth fixing and saving. They are well built and have that cool Art-Deco styling in the main casting. They were made by King-Seeley exclusively for Sears, and sold under the Craftsman and Dunlap brands. They were made in three sizes: small 7" benchtop, large 15" benchtop (yours), a 15" floor-standing. I have two of them in my own drill press collection; a small Dunlap and a large benchtop Craftsman. Both are fully operational and in regular use.

These drill presses are popular among antique machinery fans, and there are still a lot of them around. Here in the LA area, there are always several for sale on CraigsList. Many good resources for parts lists and catalog reprints. And parts are available.

Clean it up, repair it, and it will be your forever drill press.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

Thanks you guys, now I'm jonesing for old cast iron devices .
The heavier the better I guess.

I do need to get a belt driven thickness sander that can handle 15" or more in width.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Thanks for responses all! Amazing resource here on TB. I applied for forum use on OWWM.org, waiting to hear back from them. Two of my four sons have inherited my tool interest, one of them has become obsessed with buying rusty old hand tools and restoring them, between the two of us, we should be able to get this thing apart and fixed. Its too cool not to fix, anyway, and I'm going to need a drillpress sooner than later.

 

[farace]

Thanks for responses all! Amazing resource here on TB. I applied for forum use on OWWM.org, waiting to hear back from them. Two of my four sons have inherited my tool interest, one of them has become obsessed with buying rusty old hand tools and restoring them, between the two of us, we should be able to get this thing apart and fixed. Its too cool not to fix, anyway, and I'm going to need a drillpress sooner than later.

There is a Facebook group, too, tied to the website. Naturally, being Facebook, it gets more traffic and interaction.

Facebook Groups

 

[Gilmourisgod]

After watching some YT videos for Craftsman drills of the same era, I’m 90% sure that the stop collar at the top of the quill tube that holds the chuck shaft has just come loose, which should be an easy fix. I just have to push the chuck shaft up so it engages the pulley and then tighten the stop collar. The broken teeth on the feed lever shaft is actually unrelated, though I’d like to fix that too. I’m guessing the spring return had just loosened, but it may be a broken spring. Maybe somebody on OWWM can point towards parts sources.

 

[Arie X]

at the day job i'm the go-to guy for what to do about funky old stuff. latest project was a ground up resto of a 69' Takisawa lathe. it was a bro deal from a company friend.

zero parts available, manuals all in japanese, make everything ourselves. -talk about pig iron content; 8600 lbs of it. no foot brake, no safety guards (until recently). had a local company rewind the massive brake solenoid. the only setback was when the electrician fried all of the relays, but now it's awesome again.

 

[farace]

After watching some YT videos for Craftsman drills of the same era, I’m 90% sure that the stop collar at the top of the quill tube that holds the chuck shaft has just come loose, which should be an easy fix. I just have to push the chuck shaft up so it engages the pulley and then tighten the stop collar. The broken teeth on the feed lever shaft is actually unrelated, though I’d like to fix that too. I’m guessing the spring return had just loosened, but it may be a broken spring. Maybe somebody on OWWM can point towards parts sources.

That large knob on the left side of the housing adjusts the return spring. There is a lock screw below it. If you loosen that screw and turn the knob I believe counterclockwise, it should add tension to the spring. You’ll know soon enough if the spring is still attached. If you get no tension, the spring may be broken, or it may just have detached. The spring has a loop at each end, affixed to the inside of the knob at one end and around a pin at the handle end. It can be a little fussy trying to get it reinstalled, but it can be done.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

After watching some YT videos for Craftsman drills of the same era, I’m 90% sure that the stop collar at the top of the quill tube that holds the chuck shaft has just come loose, which should be an easy fix. I just have to push the chuck shaft up so it engages the pulley and then tighten the stop collar. The broken teeth on the feed lever shaft is actually unrelated, though I’d like to fix that too. I’m guessing the spring return had just loosened, but it may be a broken spring. Maybe somebody on OWWM can point towards parts sources.

Yes, that's it. The missing teeth on the feed lever shaft are only related to your problem in that, if the missing teeth spot is rotated toward the quill, then the quill can drop all the way down (if the stop collar is also loose). If the feed shaft had all its teeth, the quill couldn't drop down all the way.

You need a new feed lever shaft assembly, like that one in the ebay ad in your early post. That's probably the only part you need. But also check the return spring, like Bob describes above.

Sheared off teeth on the feed lever shaft is the result of abuse. Someone leaned way too hard on it, trying to use it like an arbor press, or forcing a dull bit into steel. The guilty party should be cornered and severely finger-wagged!

 

[BJMtz]

Thanks for responses all! Amazing resource here on TB. I applied for forum use on OWWM.org, waiting to hear back from them. Two of my four sons have inherited my tool interest, one of them has become obsessed with buying rusty old hand tools and restoring them, between the two of us, we should be able to get this thing apart and fixed. Its too cool not to fix, anyway, and I'm going to need a drillpress sooner than later.

I’m getting into restoring old tools as well. I just restored this old drill press vise to go with my drill press.

 

[farace]

View attachment 4017918 View attachment 4017919

I’m getting into restoring old tools as well. I just restored this old drill press vise to go with my drill press.

Nice job! I recently rehabbed a mid-‘40s Craftsman bench vise. I needed one because the Chinese POS I got off my dad’s bench busted and I needed one. An acquaintance was moving and getting rid of one, though it was quite rusty and frozen up. Some cleaning, degreasing, and Evapo-Rust, and some new grease and paint, and it’s going to live a new life. Not showroom condition, but I fixed it to use it, not collect it.

 

[Arie X]

that's neat! i like the oil hole. designed in there back when things were meant to be kept in use!

 

[farace]

that's neat! i like the oil hole. designed in there back when things were meant to be kept in use!

There is a second oil hole in the slide to address the drive screw further along. One of the things I really appreciate about this vise is the swivel lock. Most that I’ve seen just rely on friction from clamping that screw down tight, and sometimes they get stripped. This one has teeth on the bottom of the bolt that engage in a ring of teeth around the inside of the base. No slipping there, and the lockdown doesn’t need to be screwed down nearly as tightly to secure it from rotating.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Sheared off teeth on the feed lever shaft is the result of abuse. Someone leaned way too hard on it, trying to use it like an arbor press, or forcing a dull bit into steel. The guilty party should be cornered and severely finger-wagged!

The guilty party was probably my Grandad. He'll have to be shot in absentia. He was a brilliant guy, an MD and former Physics teacher at MIT, but his approach to tools and tinkering in general was "what is the absolute minimum time and effort needed to achieve the desired effect with common hardware store items?" I can't see him spending one minute of his time repairing this drill, and luckily for me, it outlived him. I will admit I've used this drillpress as a fret arbor with a radius caul, but don't remember any ominous snapping or crunching sounds, and only to "set" the frets prior to driving home with subsequent hammering. By the looks of the broken pinion teeth, whatever went down happened a LONG time ago. The Ebay pinion and lever guy wants $30 for the parts and $20 to ship it. Does that seem reasonable? I have no idea how rare these parts are, or what the market will bear on price.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I finally managed to steal a few minutes to take this thing apart, which it did readily enough. Turns out the "broken pinion" tooth was just bad light and old grease, so that was good news. I managed to get the whole thing back together after a bit of struggle. There must be some minor damage or wear on the spline teeth on the bottom of the top pulley, such that the spindle shaft only goes in at one point in the rotation, took me a while to realize that. There's also some vertical slop in the spindle up and down, looks like maybe Grandpa took this apart at some point and misplaced a spacer or two.

The only remaining problem is that the quill return spring is broken, dagnabbit. I've been looking online for a replacement, a very specific 5" long torsion spring with a loop on one end and a 90 degree bend on the other, so far no luck. Any suggestions on a source for such a spring appreciated. "Springs R' Us" perchance?

 

[T_Bone_TL]

I finally managed to steal a few minutes to take this thing apart, which it did readily enough. Turns out the "broken pinion" tooth was just bad light and old grease, so that was good news. I managed to get the whole thing back together after a bit of struggle. There must be some minor damage or wear on the spline teeth on the bottom of the top pulley, such that the spindle shaft only goes in at one point in the rotation, took me a while to realize that. There's also some vertical slop in the spindle up and down, looks like maybe Grandpa took this apart at some point and misplaced a spacer or two.
View attachment 4039615
The only remaining problem is that the quill return spring is broken, dagnabbit. I've been looking online for a replacement, a very specific 5" long torsion spring with a loop on one end and a 90 degree bend on the other, so far no luck. Any suggestions on a source for such a spring appreciated. "Springs R' Us" perchance?

Winding your own is a possibility. Spring steel wire is easily available. Learning to bend it is not absurd, but does require a degree of grokking that it has to be a bit more than you think due to springback - and that you often need a bit more to actually make the spring (that you then cut off) due to leverage at the ends.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

"Springs R' Us" perchance?

Century Spring Corp. is the biggest supplier of springs in the US. Their main factory here in LA has a retail storefront that has literally millions of different springs in stock. I've been there and seen it.

On their web site, look under Torsion Springs.

Coil & Custom Spring Manufacturer | Century Spring Corp.

And yes, like T bone says, you can wind your own from spring wire stock. It isn't that hard. Look for Piano Wire.

McMaster-Carr