A bit of bother drilling

There could be a number of nreasons for the Tailstock ,moving back when attempting to drill a hole.

1 Did you use a centre drill?

2 Did you use a pilot drill? (Trying to drill a large hole in one, requires a lot of pressure. )

3 Are you drills sharp? A blunt drill, or any other cutting tool won't cut, or will require a lot too much pressure.

At your stage, there is not much point in extolling the virtues of four facet drill grinding, because you really need a cutter grinder for that.

4 As already suggested, the clamp may need to be tightened. Self locking nut or no, they do need to be reset from time to time to maintain sufficient clamping pressure.

SUGGESTIONS

a Tightern the Clamp

b Use a centre drill

c Drill one or more pilot hole(s More than one if a large hole is the required end product ) The pilot hole allows the centre of the larger drill to be unloaded. (Since it runs at Zero cutting speed , it doesn't do much )

d Check that the drills are sharp. (Some drills are less than properly sharpened. even when new. Cheap drills are a waste of money for a variety of reasons )

DON'T try sharpening drills yourself. It takes skill to grind a drill so that it cuts properly and to size.

Some of the cheap drill grinding appliances are of dubius worth. It is easy to melt a plastic one. and some of the metal m,ones are better, but benefit from careful attention to detail.

If you take the advice to join a model engineering club, you will learn why and how.

e Don't expect a HSS drill to cut hardened steel.

Howard