Which Drill press??? for Folders

[rickmenefee]

jet higher end delta are great if you need one fast, watch craiglist clausing,delt variable speed,walker-turner are some of the best. spend the money and buy keyless chucks

 

[butcher_block]

That will even work with high hardness high alloy stuff. :thumbup: I'll use old carbide ball endmills to cut out busted drills and taps etc. What you're doing is much better than just drilling the hole. However, there are a couple disadvantages compared to using a reamer.

An end mill has relief ground behind the cutting edge, which is what allows it to be fed sideways though material without rubbing. That makes an endmill inherently more "grabby". If you use a four flute, this can lead to chatter. If you use a two flute, there is nothing to prevent "lobe walking" (I just made that term up, but it describes it exactly, motion kinda like a wankel engine) which is the tendency of a two cutting edge tool to cut slightly triangular shaped holes (like a drilled hole). That tendency is minimized with a short stiff carbide cutter, so I'm sure you get good results. But, for a similar cutter cost, you could use a multiflute reamer which will do the same job and is sized more accurately than an endmill. Let me reiterate, there is nothing wrong with your approach, but you might find using a reamer works just as well or better.

I'll look into the reamers but your right i use 4 flute or for a 1/8 hole i use the dremmel cutter thing and they have like 12 flutes up im geto maker for sure my biggest thing was to not get the lobe and to get a nice finish inside the hole (not liek the post HT soft layer that i would need to clean up anyhow )

 

[Don Hanson III]

jet higher end delta are great if you need one fast, watch craiglist clausing,delt variable speed,walker-turner are some of the best. spend the money and buy keyless chucks

Keyless chuch was the best money I ever spent for folder making :thumbup:

 

[Jim Adams Customs]

Nevermind

 

[Nathan the Machinist]

An XY table on a drill press would be used for accurate positioning. For example, you might clamp a hardened folder blade to the table and indicate the hole so you could chase it with a short carbide reamer post HT. You won't see this done in a machine shop because it would be done on a mill. But if you didn't have a mill, you'd want an XY table in order to do this rigidly clamped - otherwise you have to let it float, which is not exactly rigid, and possibly bad news if reaming hardened steel with a carbide reamer.

You'd also want an XY table anytime you're using a fixed vice to hold your work to allow you to position your work.

I don't recommend much milling on a drill press. Small cutters (1/8") if side loading, light cuts and soft materials (wood) only. But that is the other obvious use for an XY table. There are probably other good uses I haven't thought of.

I've never personally owned a drill press. I bought one for a shop I setup for a company about 15 years ago, but it was not used much. Another company I work for bought one last year for a manual reaming operation in some reworked manifolds and after working with it I found it to be very crude compared to even a very modest mill. It was a three pulley "Jet" drill press that cost over $1,000, and this particular sample was a miserable POS. It had a 5/8" chuck on a MT2 taper with so much runout to be near useless. There was a lathe in the shop with a MT2 tailstock that had a good chuck that we used, but even then it wasn't particularly good. I'm not accustomed to machinery flexing much in use, so I've stayed away.

In our post industrial wasteland (oops, I meant to say, shiny new "service" economy, pardon me), good mills can be had for a couple grand...

 

[Jim Adams Customs]

Mr Nathan please explain to us that are not "Machinist" how we are to hold the odd shapes liners and frames in a vise? Also why do we need accurate position on folder's spacer holes in relationship to the tang hole and what point on our folders should we make zero maybe it the corner I rounded off accidentally a extra .005 off the x axis and .007 off the y axis? Okay do I need hang the blueprint on the wall because I have dozens of x,y position written on my Blueprint, I have to manual count off, because there is no digital Readout. I know what I am talking about I have been a machinist since 1981.
I make my living making knives. I can't afford to waste time using a a X,Y table and vise, they are in most case toys that will sit on a shelve. Even worst trying to jig up a .060 liner in a vice. Why don't I send them out to David and have him waterjet my parts and spot my holes. Then I can come back and center drill, drill, ream and countersink all my holes for whole folder before you can drill and ream one hole. Time is money. You can spend your life counting off handle turns. I am going hunting.

 

[Nathan the Machinist]

Huh?

I'm sorry Jim, but I don't understand what you're talking about. I think you may have misunderstood what I was getting at. Nothing that I was talking about involves the use of counting turns, reading the dials or using a DRO. With the exception of indicating on an existing hole to ream a hardened pivot (where alignment to a fixed workpiece would be important) I'm not talking about anything laborious, time consuming, difficult or fancy here.

I'm talking about using an XY table to speed up and simplify moving a work piece around, that would otherwise be laboriously clamped and tapped about trying to position and clamp to a static table to get your drill bit aligned where you want it. An XY table makes this faster and easier. So you can go hunting or fishing or whatever...

So, no offense, but if all of the work that you're doing on a drill press is unsupported and unfixed (meaning you never clamp or fix something down), you might be missing something.

 

[Jim Adams Customs]

Huh?

I'm sorry Jim, but I don't understand what you're talking about. I think you may have misunderstood what I was getting at. Nothing that I was talking about involves the use of counting turns, reading the dials or using a DRO. With the exception of indicating on an existing hole to ream a hardened pivot (where alignment to a fixed workpiece would be important) I'm not talking about anything laborious, time consuming, difficult or fancy here.

I'm talking about using an XY table to speed up and simplify moving a work piece around, that would otherwise be laboriously clamped and tapped about trying to position and clamp to a static table to get your drill bit aligned where you want it. An XY table makes this faster and easier. So you can go hunting or fishing or whatever...

So, no offense, but if all of the work that you're doing on a drill press is unsupported and unfixed (meaning you never clamp or fix something down), you might be missing something.

Nathan I can drill and ream all my holes in less than ten minutes. I do clamp down for the pivot Holes on frames, liners and blades. No I don't clamp down for a clearance hole or countersinking.
I can use my center finder or a drill bit though the hole, and a vise grip style clamp and clamp my blade or liner in position in less than 10 seconds to zero position. A 10 dollar clamp verses 100 dollar table plus vise? I am just not seeing the value.