I'm feeling pretty good about this mod I just made to my Drill press.
A few years back several people found a deal through here and Lowes for Hitachi B16RM 15" floor drill press. http://www.sawdustzone.org/showthrea...hlight=Hitachi
I liked the drill press almost 100% except I never liked the quill stop. I always liked the one mounted in the hub of my old delta but that drill press was too small.
The Hitachi had a vertical threaded "D" rod (The D describes a flat on one side) that had a couple of thumb nuts and a washer... the two nuts are so that you could lock them and the washer had a matching antirotation flat so that you could tighten the top not without rotating the bottom nut. The problem was that a 3"+ quill stroke always left the nuts as far as possible from the desired stop position and even though it had a coarse 2mm thread it took a lot of spins to move the nut and then the other. The washer with its flat tended to catch and not slide down so that slowed it more.
Here's the OEM arrangement: (as usual, click on the photos for a bigger version)
I saw this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT5SrJO4TgM
It details how a man used some off-the shelf Quill stops - yes a jig made for that purpose - to replace a similar rod on his drill press, In it he explained that Bridgeport tools standardized a 1/2-20 threaded rod for this purpose on their big machine tools and a big enough market had provided some inexpensive sprung, split threaded clamps. In it he explained how to modify the clamps by rethreading them
In my case the existing rod was 16mm 2-mm pitch and no easy way to rethread the stop or the rod. I'd have to get a 14mm tap drill and special 16-2 metric tap. And it might be close to breaking out being more than 5/8". Besides it would only give me 2mm (.080") stops as the quill stops won't rotate too much.
So instead I bought 3 feet of rod (needed just 6 inches). The end of the old stepped rod was a bit more than 3/8" (9mm) but that's too large to drill into the end as I was going to put a bolt in it. So I drilled and tapped for 1/4-20 and used a 14/ x 3/8" plastic sleeve to fill the gap. Old and new rods:
Installed: ( and you can see how the split clamp opens wide enough to go around the rod rather than having to be threaded on.
and from a little farther back
I can put one quill stop on the top instantly anywhere and one on the bottom if need be to limit up travel. Works so great I can cry.
I am limited a bit by 20 threads per inch giving .050" stop resolution but it is solid. I can rotate the stops some to get a bit more vertical resolution if need be. I "lost" the scale on the rod but it was never much use, so no real loss. The black stop block is a cast piece of solid steel, not stamped like on some recent drill presses that give many tens of thou of slop if you push on it.
I think the rod cost me 10 bucks shipped thru amazon and the two quill stops were from ebay for $20 incl shipping. Total almost 1/3 the cost of the Drill press but worth it!
Got 2.5 feet of rod left if anyone needs any. Its the fine thread 1/2-20 UNF, not the usual 1/2-8 UNC I think.
A few years back several people found a deal through here and Lowes for Hitachi B16RM 15" floor drill press. http://www.sawdustzone.org/showthrea...hlight=Hitachi
I liked the drill press almost 100% except I never liked the quill stop. I always liked the one mounted in the hub of my old delta but that drill press was too small.
The Hitachi had a vertical threaded "D" rod (The D describes a flat on one side) that had a couple of thumb nuts and a washer... the two nuts are so that you could lock them and the washer had a matching antirotation flat so that you could tighten the top not without rotating the bottom nut. The problem was that a 3"+ quill stroke always left the nuts as far as possible from the desired stop position and even though it had a coarse 2mm thread it took a lot of spins to move the nut and then the other. The washer with its flat tended to catch and not slide down so that slowed it more.
Here's the OEM arrangement: (as usual, click on the photos for a bigger version)
I saw this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT5SrJO4TgM
It details how a man used some off-the shelf Quill stops - yes a jig made for that purpose - to replace a similar rod on his drill press, In it he explained that Bridgeport tools standardized a 1/2-20 threaded rod for this purpose on their big machine tools and a big enough market had provided some inexpensive sprung, split threaded clamps. In it he explained how to modify the clamps by rethreading them
In my case the existing rod was 16mm 2-mm pitch and no easy way to rethread the stop or the rod. I'd have to get a 14mm tap drill and special 16-2 metric tap. And it might be close to breaking out being more than 5/8". Besides it would only give me 2mm (.080") stops as the quill stops won't rotate too much.
So instead I bought 3 feet of rod (needed just 6 inches). The end of the old stepped rod was a bit more than 3/8" (9mm) but that's too large to drill into the end as I was going to put a bolt in it. So I drilled and tapped for 1/4-20 and used a 14/ x 3/8" plastic sleeve to fill the gap. Old and new rods:
Installed: ( and you can see how the split clamp opens wide enough to go around the rod rather than having to be threaded on.
and from a little farther back
I can put one quill stop on the top instantly anywhere and one on the bottom if need be to limit up travel. Works so great I can cry.
I am limited a bit by 20 threads per inch giving .050" stop resolution but it is solid. I can rotate the stops some to get a bit more vertical resolution if need be. I "lost" the scale on the rod but it was never much use, so no real loss. The black stop block is a cast piece of solid steel, not stamped like on some recent drill presses that give many tens of thou of slop if you push on it.
I think the rod cost me 10 bucks shipped thru amazon and the two quill stops were from ebay for $20 incl shipping. Total almost 1/3 the cost of the Drill press but worth it!
Got 2.5 feet of rod left if anyone needs any. Its the fine thread 1/2-20 UNF, not the usual 1/2-8 UNC I think.
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