Drill Press Wear

Hi,
I have acquired a Fobco drill press, that has wear between the body casting and the quill.

I'm new to drill presses and wonder if there is a way to 'repair' this or, is it likely that this machine has reached the end of the road.
As far as I'm aware, there are no 'new' or replacement parts available, since the firm has ceased trading.
Thanks for your help.

It is unlikely that the machine has ‘reached the end of the road’ if the owner is determined to repair it - but it does rather depend on how much that wear might be and the skill and determination of the repairer. It is often simply a case of economics, but sometimes a matter of dogged determination on the part of the user.

A minimal amount of wear could, on the other hand, not be too important for many users. They are not often used for very precise duties.

There was an article in MEW many years ago about shrink fitting a thin brass sleeve over the quill of a drill press then boring out the cast body to fit the sleeve. That would be one way of doing it. Another would be to sleeve the holes in the cast body to fit the quill. Yet another could be to put a slit/s in the body and add pinch bolts to squeeze the body in to match the quill. Some old drill presses were made with this feature included.

I've lived with some slop in the lower part of the housing on an old Progress drill for 40 years, it still drills holes and well enough for pretty much all requirements.

Brian

How are you determining that there is wear between the quill and the body? Import drill presses are notorious for a sloppy fit here but on a Fobco the tolerances are normally very good and it would have had to have been quite seriously neglected and or abused to introduce enough wear to make it unserviceable

+1. Most businesses have an accountant keeping a close eye on the cost/benefit ratio of owning machines. They compare the cost of repair with the cost of replacing, and there comes a point in the life of working machines when they are all declared 'BER', Beyond Economic Repair, When that happens the machine is out the door.

May still be worth repairing, especially in amateur ownership. As labour is expensive, businesses are more ruthless about BER than hobbyists. The question is, how much time and money do you want to spend fixing an old drill rather than using it?

The cost of spares is often a shock - second-hand prices do not apply to new parts! And if one thing is worn out, the chances are other parts are iffy too.

The repair could be a long job, which stops work on everything else. Might not matter to you because restoring old machines is a rewarding hobby in itself. Restoration isn't for me because I have other priorities. I admire the people who rebuild the mangled remains of crashed WW2 aircraft after 80 years in a peat bog and get them flying again, but it's not for me. Likewise - just me - I wouldn't put much effort into a pillar drill because most of my precision drilling is done by a mill.

I expect you'll get conflicting answers. Chaps who love old machines will recommend fixing it, whilst others wouldn't bother. Where are you? Maybe a local Fobco expert could take a look and advise.

Dave

How much wear? Does it affect drilling holes? Drill presses are not precision tools, so unless the wear prevents holes from being drilled I wouldn't worry about it.

Andrew

Hi Rick, I've used many worn / clapped-out drill presses during my day jobs, some with quite q lot of slop in the quill, but like Andrew said, if they drill holes what's the worry. It is surprising how even a very wobbly quill, will drill quite a true hole, providing the drill bit is decent. In my last day job, I had to tap a good number of M8 holes using a auto-reverse tapping head, which it did without any problems, and that was with a really worn sloppy quill.

Picture below is not the best quality, as it's taken from a video recorded on my old phone.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 12/06/2023 12:05:04

If the problem with wear on the OP's machine is causing the table to sag at the front, so the drill is no longer square to it, a simple prop made of a heavy threaded rod and long nut can be used to get it square for a job. The prop is fitted between the table and base, and the table front jacked up under the table while checking between table and drill for square. If the wear is not huge sometimes shims of brass or aluminum sheet can be placed between column and table collar. If these work they can be loctited in place. Crude, but these methods work, at minimal cost and effort. A drill press is not a precision hole making tool but a badly worn one can still be adjusted to do plenty of work.

If the table won't clamp securely to the column don't force the clamp screw, it may break. Adding some shims may also help clamping.

Hi and thank you all for your replies.

When I first used the machine I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of run out on the drill bit.
I checked the run out on the body of the chuck and this was around 0.05mm which I believe is acceptable. This was measured while turning the chuck by hand with the quill fully retracted.
When grabbing the chuck, there is side to side and front to back 'play', that gets worse as the quill is extended.
At full extension, there is about 1mm movement.
When trying to drill, the run out at the drill bit is sufficient to move the material being drilled around in small circles.

The fobco has a quill locking bolt /clamp and when this is tightened all play goes away. There appears to be zero play in the bearings.

I also noticed that once the drill bit bites and starts to cut, downward pressure seems to remove the run out and the bit stabilises and cuts well.

Starting a hole with any accuracy is the problem.

On thing that I've not been able to determine is the condition of the chuck. Its the original Jacobs 34 but I cannot remove it, to test the drill with an alternative. The fobco has a threaded ring above the chuck that I believe is designed to push the chuck off the taper. However, as its been there for about 58 years, it refused to come off.
What alternative methods could be tried to remove it ?

If anyone knows of a 'fobco' expert in the west midlands, I love to have a chat with them.

Thanks again.

Hi Rick, used a few press drills like that in my time, so not unusual for a machine of that age if it spent most of its time in industry. You should however clamp your work down when drilling on a new or old machine.

Regards Nick.

Nick, quite agree, I now always clamp down. I have busted very few drills over the years but I had a surprise in recent times. I thought that keeping below 3/16"dia., I might get away with no clamp. Work in very heavy 5" drill vice not bolted down, the 3/16" drill jammed, wrenched drill vice handle out of my hand, vice spun round and chucked off table down on to bench and busted drill. Lesson learned!

John

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 14/06/2023 09:03:11

Around the time Fobco ceased trading, I saw a turquoise-coloured, apparently factory-fresh example. Its ball handles looked a bit rough, and the quill rattled horribly in the main body. I wondered whether this was a trial model from a cheap-labour contract sub-manufacturer, or whether Fobco cobbled together reject parts to flog off. If that was the best they could do, the world's better off without them. Pity, because the cream-coloured ones were good machines, although I thought the belt section was too large for the small pulleys. I would very much have liked the bigger model...

Hi Kiwi Bloke, one of the worn out drills I had to use in one of my day jobs, was one of those Fobco cream coloured floor standing ones, this had about the same amount of slop that Rick has described with his. The clamping on the table to the column was also well worn, which was probably as much on the top end of the column, and you had to use an extension tube to get the table tight enough to hold it at any position on the column, but it still drilled very good holes.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 14/06/2023 10:52:20