Ever seen a drill press like this?

[muthrie]

I found this on Craig's list (seattle). Never seen anything like it, but it looks like it might be a real drill press run by hand. Any one know about these? Drill Press

[Jonathryn]

I found this on Craig's list (seattle). Never seen anything like it, but it looks like it might be a real drill press run by hand. Any one know about these? Drill Press

Those were apparently standard, especially in blacksmiths' smitheries? Smithertoons? I saw one at a flea market a week ago in okay shape. It would go up on a the wall. It's surprisingly easy to drill through metal, especially sheet metal, with a small bit and an eggbeater drill. That one would be for bigger jobs. Some of them are retrofitted for electric motors, but they were especially suited to farm shops. People forget that large parts of rural America had no electricity until the late 1960s. Rural electrification, especially in Texas, was a priority for the Johnson administration.

[atomicmike]

That almost looks like it was designed to be belt-driven, likely off of a central steam engine or similar.

[Lawrence Brown]

It is indeed a blacksmith's drill.

The large wheel is a flywheel. You spin the flywheel up to speed with the large crank on the right. The smaller crank on the top lowers the bit into the metal. For obvious reasons, you actually have to clamp the work to the small table at the bottom. These work pretty well and can cut through serious hunks of metal. A lot of them had an adjustable screw feed that would automatically lower the bit into the work, but this one looks to be manual.

If I had the money, I'd be all over that. Thanks for the link:)

[jHop]

One hobby I have is blacksmithing. While I cannot say I have seen these in the smithies (spelling?) I have visited, I can say that most blacksmiths would not need anything bigger than this. Biggest reason is they work with punches, so they don't need to drill out many holes. The drills are used to straighten out and clean up the holes.

I admit I haven't spoken with any blacksmiths lately. This is an amazing drill press, and any craftsman would like this. I love that this was made in Ohio, but ended up in Washington. Proof that good tools go wherever they are needed, eh?

If anybody is interested in more blacksmith tools, check out ABANA's website (www.abana.org) and their marketplace links. Or go to sources like Rat Hole Forge, or Centaur Forge. They have some tools that can also be used for woodworking. (Consider that the blacksmith, until roughly the eighteenth century, was the primary industry keeping towns alive. They handled all tool repairs or manufacturing for the farms, even some of the dining and cooking ware that was not sold by peddlers or merchants, and had a wide variety of skills including shoeing horses and oxen, weaponsmithing, gunsmithing, edges of silver smithing, and carpentry and basic woodworking. The village blacksmith was the jack of all trades, before technology forced him (or her) to drop specializations. I mean, why learn more about woodworking when all you are asked to do is repair buggies and wagons, which usually consists of putting rims on the wheels or reattaching metal pivots or joint strengtheners, or craft the odd barrel now and then? Usually, the most woodworking the blacksmith did was for shop equipment. Sound familiar?)

The one piece of equipment I'm considering heavily for wood working that gets frequent use in blacksmithing is a post vise. They are one legged vises that look like a metal version of the Roubo vise set up, just not as bulky or capable of as wide a workpiece. They take up only a little bit of space, are fairly stable for many things, and are not terribly expensive.

[Jonathryn]

The one piece of equipment I'm considering heavily for wood working that gets frequent use in blacksmithing is a post vise. They are one legged vises that look like a metal version of the Roubo vise set up, just not as bulky or capable of as wide a workpiece. They take up only a little bit of space, are fairly stable for many things, and are not terribly expensive.

Interesting. I've seen one of those around as well. What would you do with it in a wood working context? Knock off the bottom "post" and install it like a leg vise, a la Roubo?

[Bob Rozaieski]

They're fairly common. Google "post drill" and you'll find plenty about them.

[jHop]

It would become my primary face vise. If mounted correctly, it will not interfere with projects on the top of the workbench. (But we all know that won't happen, right?)

And the more I thought about the drill press, the more I thought it would be best suited to milling applications undertaken by hand power. I'd imagine most blacksmiths would have the apprentice powering up the flywheel, and they would operate the table/clamp end of the press, but I could be mistaken.