| Archive for The Unofficial Mamod and Other Steam Forum The Original Unofficial Toy Steam Forum Established 2006 The biggest, most popular global steam forum around! Accept NO imitations! We have a growing community of regular posting members who chat about all aspects of toy and model steam. |
| Michael |
Drill press recommendationsHi Steamers,Having read some other threads on turning valves and fittings, tooling and lathers I am sufficiently inspired to go out and invest in a small drill press to get me on my way to producing some of my own fittings and possible attempt a small engine. The assumptions that I have made so far are to get a reasonable sturdy but sturdy drill press that has multi speed function and a base that can have various vices and chucks mounted to. Can anyone else point any other features that I should look for? I will use this drill press for installing drain cocks and oil cups on to my Stuart S50 and 10V, turning small globe valves as purchased in a casting kit, tap and thread pipe and fittings and then if possible to turn small piston and sleeve assembles. Not having any experience I would hope it possible to mount a chuck from a small lathe on the base to some small turning works., Is this practically possible or would I need a lath to do this? Thanks for any tips Mick |
||||
| redryder |
Mick, I would recommend a small milling machine. | ||||
| Michael |
Silly question but is a milling machine a lathe or is there a difference? | ||||
| johnreid |
Some Milling Machines convert to a lathe Google is your friend | ||||
| Mark-One |
Milling machines are more like a drill press than lathe.
Mills spin the tool, lathes spin the work Some of those combo lathe/mills look neat, though I wonder if they are in the "neither fish nor fowl" category. |
||||
| redryder |
While a mill resembles a drill press there are important differences. Most notable, a drill press is designed to move a bit directly up and down with no extra force from the sides. A mill is designed to withstand all kinds of lateral force in addition to basic up and down motion. A drill press just won't hold up if used consistently for milling. |
||||
| tmuir |
A good small mill will also cost you 2 or 3 times what a good drill press will cost so it depends on your budget.
What ever brand you buy get one with a cast iron table not one with a cheap cast aluminium table. The reason being is it will be more ridged and less likely to flex under drilling operations. All mills have cast iron bases but some cheap drill presses have cast ali ones. Do you know how to resharpen drill bits so they don't grab in brass? A standard drill bit out of the packet is sharpened for steel and will grab and not drill cleanly if not modified for brass. |
||||
| davidcurtis021 |
micheal dont know whether i should be throwing my twopennyworth in here, but as mentioned in another thread i am thinking about buying a lathe. after being tottaly confused by what was on offer i started by buying a dvd about using a lathe which demonstrated it use as a machine for turning, boring,reaming milling,threading, and drilling and at the end the guy demonstrated some scratch built engines he had made using it.
i think it was a 7*10 taig lathe. |
||||
| BK |
Take notice of Gil, (redryder) you cannot use a drill press for machining, not for long anyway. no accuracy. | ||||
| Michael |
I have done a bit of research on the web and with this information here I have a much clearer idea of what I am looking at.
I didn’t know that you need to specially sharpen tools for brass and I will keep that in mind. I have a couple of books on the way covering machining and model building and will wait for them to arrive and get better acquainted with this topic before purchasing anything but that DVD also sounds like a good idea. I might get a small drill press first, I have seen a very cheap one about 18” high for around GBP35 that would I imaging allow me to put oil cups and drain cocks on my engine. I will think more on the mill before deciding what to go for. Could a small standard drill press be used for thread cutting as I will be doing pipe work first and this will be something I will need? Cheers Mick |
||||
| Stilldrillin |
Mick,
Start with a not too cheap drill press, & learn to use that properly. Learn to regrind drills on a 6" bench grinder. (Drills for brass need to be blunted, not sharpened). 
When you have developed your skills, buy a 7x12 lathe, & proceed with that. Then buy a small milling machine...... This process took me several years, even though I worked as a skilled machinist all my working life...... |
||||
| davidcurtis021 |
micheal the guy on the dvd demonstrated exterior thread cutting on his lathe. But then he demonstrated tapping and threading using his tailstock as a toolholder to hold either a tap or die and the chuck as his workholder he turned the work by hand a quater of a revolution at a time backwards and forwards. he insisted this gave him much cleaner threads although it was time consuming. |
||||
| Roly Williams |
A drill press can not be used for thread cutting. For that you need taps & dies or a thread cutting lathe. And, no, you can't put a tap in a drilling machine; not safely anyway. A drill press should only be used for drilling. An exception to this is, if you're careful, you can hold a small workpiece in the chuck and turn it using a file as a tool. This should only be done if you have absolutely no alternative because it puts forces on the bearings that they were not designed for and they will wear out very rapidly. As you have discovered, small drill presses can come quite cheap. Like most tools, you get what you pay for and a cheap drill is no good for precision work, but it's good enough for most purposes. It's better to spend money on a decent machine vice than on the drill. The only machine tool I have is a cheap drill press. My main problem is that I also bought a cheap machine vice - a mistake I keep intending to rectify. A good vice will cost as much as the cheap drill but it I think it will be worth it. I sometimes regret not having a lathe but I rarely regret the lack of a milling machine. If you intend going in for serious model making from scratch then you will need all three - and more - but I manage to do most repairs and modifications with what I've got. |
||||
| Stilldrillin |
Think outside the box, often.
It`s quite surprising what you can do, with what you`ve got, sometimes....
|
||||
| tmuir |
I would say yes and no Roly. I agree you can't just a tap in the drill press but you can use a drill press to drill the pilot hole for the tap and you can use a drill press to help you tap true. Here is a picture of me using my drill press to hold a tap true before I made a dedicated tap holder in my lathe. All I have is a bit of silver steel with a point on it to fit in the back of the tap holder. This worked perfectly well for the 1/8 inch tap I was using. 
|
||||
| Roly Williams |
I have seen that done before, Tony, and I did think of mentioning it but I decided not to complicate things for a beginner. I assume you are using the drill as an alignment aid and, maybe, a simple press. I assume it's not powered at the time. I guess it helps to be ambidextrous, tuning the tap holder with your left hand while applying pressure with the right. Or do you hang a heavy weight on the press handle? | ||||
| tmuir |
Yes it is used unpowered and just as an alignment aid. I think I stood off to the side so I could hold the point down with my left and the tap with my right. I have now made a couple of simple tapping tools and you can purchase similar things. Here is my first tapping tool been used to tap my second tool. 
This picture shows how it works. You clamp the tube in the drill chuck and the part that holds the tap is a close sliding fit inside it, so you just turn it by hand and as it screws in it just slides out of the tube. 
|
||||
| WeedenSteam |
With that set up you could use a piece of pipe chucked in the drill press that the stem on the tap fit into so that it aligned the tap but the quill would not have to move once the height was set. I have a similar tool like that for my lathe. |
||||
| WeedenSteam |
Guess you posted the second one while I was typing. | ||||
| Stilldrillin |
If you buy one of these & press the little springy button......
Take away all these pieces..... 
You can easily make one of these little square drive tapping chucks, from what`s left...... 
Guided by the chuck, it works a treat for any small size tapping..... 
|
||||
| Les |
That's a good tip David. 
|
||||
| Dr. Rog |
Lots of good advice on this thread.
£35 is pocket money and the machine will be useful for some small jobs. Just keeping a drill square will allow holes far bigger than can be drilled by hand and all these little holes are only possible with a rigidly held drill. It will not do 1" pipework. Thats huge. I suggest take the punt and enjoy learning a bit. Then think about the wisdom in the ther posts.
|
||||
| Leadfoot-uk |
Hi,
I am also looking at a machine purchase and am very taken by the unimat SL range, been around for years. They are a small lathe but come with a substantial bar to mount the motor vertically so becoming a milling machine, a good 2nd hand one will cost 200 - 300 GBP but for that will come with a selection of attachments. If you are really on a budget, would a Dremel with a stand suffice to drill such small components as valves etc? Only a thought... 
|
||||
| redryder |
I should think a well maintained used Unimat is a very good piece of kit for a very reasonable price and as you suggested, buying used often nets you a whole collection of needed and otherwise expensive tooling and attachments. Gil |
||||
| tmuir |
No, not if you need any acuracy. It has been tried before else where and as they discovered with the dremel just in a plastic case it has considerable runout and isn't suitable for drilling small acurate holes. It would probably be ok for oscilator steam ports and the likes but not for steam ports on slide valve engines. Where I live Dremels are outrageously expensive too. I can buy a new Chinese drill press for less than a dremel. 
|
||||
| SlideValve |
"I am sufficiently inspired to go out and invest in a small drill press to get me on my way to producing some of my own fittings and possible attempt a small engine"
If your talking small, I recommend this
http://www.ministeam.com/acatalog/wim51.jpg |