Drill press table height adjustment ideas needed

[UncleJoe]

I have an older craftsman benchtop drill press. It has an adjustable table, if you can call it  that. To raise or lower the table you losen the handle and struggle to lift or lower the table. I wish it had a rack and pinion gear like some models but this on just has a clamp. The real problem comes up when you set up to drill a few holes and you get everything lined up and find you need to raise or lower the table. Your setup is no good. There is no way to change the table height without moving everything.

Now the  easy fix is to just purchase a good drill press and I may end up doing that but this drill press was given to me by my dad. It will always have a home in my shop.

If anyone has come up with a decent way to build a simple height adjustable drill press table I sure would be interested in hearing the details. I am probably not the only guy that has one of these. For what it is worth I checked Sears spare parts to see if I could purchase a rack and pinion setup and make it fit my drill press. Good idea except for what the parts cost I can buy a real nice brand new drill press with a great table. Man, they sure want a lot for parts these days.

Thanks for any ideas you may have

 

[leer]

You could try adding a hydraulic bottle jack for lifting the table.  HF sells small ones for under $10, the last time I checked.  (Nissan wanted $200 for one for a truck I bought, and I bought a similar one at HF for $6.99!).

The big hassle I see is fabricating the brackets and such to adapt it.  I think I'd buy a new one, and keep the old one as-is, and maybe dedicate it to a task you might often repeat, where adjustments are not done very often? Or maybe repurpose it, such as mounting it horizontally, and using it for a horizontal boring machine, or adapting it to be a buffing machine by chucking a buffing wheel into it?

 

[nclemmons]

Could you share some photos?

 

[jacko9]

Cut yourself a few plywood shims of different thicknesses to use as the sacrificial table and add or subtract as needed.

Jack

 

[Corwin]

Those rack and pinion setups aren't really that good at addressing your problem as they don't prevent the possibility of the alignment changing when you raise/lower the table.  One thing you can do is to lower the quill all the way down before you begin your setup -- that works for some situations. 

 

[Birdhunter]

I have an old Delta drill press with the rack & pinion feature and Corwin is correct in that you can lose alignment when you crank the table up and down.

A solution I use is to use a set-up block (I use a square piece of ebony) that has a pinprick indentation in the center. I can repeatably position the set-up block on the table with precision. I mount a run-out tool (essentially a 3/8" diameter 4" long cylinder with a point on the end) in the drill press.

If I have to move the drill press between operations, I remount the set-up block and the run-out tool. I adjust the table until the point of the run-out tool exactly touches the set-up block indentation.

The key is to find a way on your drill press table to mount the set-up block repeatably to the exact same location.

 

[DavidW]

I saw a set up that used a sleeve  mounted at top of column. A steel cable, attached at one end to the table and the other end to counter weights small enought to fit inside the column tube.
David

 

[johnmocha]

Here's a sweet idea.  http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/threads/26723-Drill-press-table-lift

 

[rst]

I also have a Sears Drill press from the 70's.  Nice heavy rig... has a much larger main table than anything new except industrial.  It has an auxiliary round tilting table on which I installed a large machinist cross vise upon.  The table raising mechanism is a crank handle with chain and gear.  Due to the weight the crank was seriously out matched.  I solved the raising and lowering problem with an off road 50" jack.  It isn't elegant but it works.  I keep it aligned with a dot laser that fits in the chuck.