Help Cutting Slot with Drill Press
#17
(07-31-2016, 07:21 AM)KyleD Wrote: Has anyone ever seen a drill press with worn out bearings from side loading? I think this is one of those tales that has been said so many times it has become gospel.
That being said, I agree a drill press is not made for the side loads machining metal or removing large swaths of wood can create. I see the weak link as the fact a drill press has a shallow taper holding the chuck on and no drawbar to keep it there. That and a lack of rigidity in the head can make for a poor cut at best and a chuck and bit that come loose and go spinning across the shop like a flesh eating-spinning top at worst.

Yes, friend had a small bench-top drill press and decided to use it as as a mill. After doing so there was so much slop in the mechanism that it was pretty much useless. 

I have seen posts where the standard ball bearings in a small press have been replaced with conical bearings to better handle the radial loading. Even so, you then run into the the chuck falling out since there is no draw bar holding the taper in place. I have also seen some pretty serious radial drill presses that did have double bearings and lock screws threaded into the top of the taper. 

This would do a much better job but is still not as capable as a milling machine. That being said, I have done some very "light" milling in teflon without much issue.
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#18
If this were my problem, I think I would try making a bracket that attaches a router to the drill press spindle, giving the best of both worlds. Otherwise, a router and straightedge would be my choice.
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#19
I would draw out my slot and then clamp a fence from some scrap wood on the DP table.
Drill out the slot with a Forstner bit (multiple holes).
Clean up the edge with a chisel.

I could do much faster than setting up a router and fence or even install the vice.
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#20
(07-28-2016, 05:20 PM)BloomingtonMike Wrote: Do you own a router? Use that instead.

Absolutely the better choice. Unless you have a really well built DP ($$$$$$$$$$$$$ lotsa), it will have too much run out to do effective work as a milling machine.
Worst thing they can do is cook ya and eat ya

GW
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#21
Just to throw another method in here. I had the same need once. I used my Craftsman RAS with the auxiliary shaft on the back. Rotated the head bought the collet and chucked in a router bit. The 5000rpm is a little slow so wound up doing multiple passes. Dropping the bit some for each pass. Worked great.

Also, since you don't seem to want to do this as an ongoing process, don't worry about the bearing side load. I would worry about all the slop in all the parts.
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#22
The bearings in a table saw, hand router, and most other woodworking machines are pretty much the same design - single row radial.  Truth is, single row radial bearings are better suited for a table saw than they are a drill press, but that's a technical nit.  The kicker is that drill press mechanisms (rather than the bearings) are not designed to take much a side load on a regular basis.  A hand router uses the same type bearing, but it has a collet chuck and a shaft that's made to grip the tool's end better. The drill press has a moving quill so there has to be clearance there that adds to bit vibration on a side load unless there's a split casting that can be locked around the quill.  There's also the business of a tapered mounting system for the chuck on some drill presses that can loosen on some drill press designs.  Oscillating spindle sanders often use a Morse taper spindle mount system, but the spindles intended for the sockets are no where near as large as a drill chuck.

What I'm saying is that the router/milling bit in drill press' drill chuck isn't the best way to do it, but on some heavy drill presses, this can be done on rare occasion.  Sears and other drill press makers used to make an adaptor for router bits to be used in the drill press, but those adaptors were screwed on and replaced the existing chuck.
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