Antique Drill Press

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Buck Conner1

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I have a friend that sends me pictures of old tools he finds when having a barn sales in the Lancaster PA area.

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Antique - Champion Blower & Forge Hand Crank Post Drill Press Lancaster PA.


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The prices of these old tools are hundreds of dollars higher than when new.


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that is a belt driven style drill press. Where you always see pulley's and belts reaching to a central system driven by water wheels . Would love to find one workable to restore !
 
Texsam as soon as I can dig in my shed I will get some pictures of one I have looks identical to one in Bucks picture.will try to get some pics today.
 
Wow is that belt driven! Awful close to the machinest.
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These were first built with the wheel used to backup stuck bits, later most had a motor added as an option. A machine shop gentleman told me this in the 60's and he had run one of these since he was a kid. This gentleman was of the age of 92 when we spoke.

We had a belt driven shaft powdered by a water fall behind the repair shop, all equipment was run off the belts (like this drill press). Man when one of those old belts broke you were going under the work benches, never got hit but scared the crap out of you. o_O
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Jonathan All those old drill presses were before OSHA ,thats why so many old timers never had a full set of fingers
 
I have a Buffalo version in my blacksmith shop, only mine is hand operated only, I eventually found the missing automatic feed arm and pawl. Works a treat, have been collecting a few drill bits for it.
 
Jonathan All those old drill presses were before OSHA ,thats why so many old timers never had a full set of fingers
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Not only fingers, but teeth, broken noses, or missing an eye. o_O

That's like the kid hanging around a blacksmith shop. The smithy tells him "to not touch the hot horseshoes on the ground". The kid picks one of the shoes up, then drops it. The smith says "I told you they were hot". The kid relies "It doesn't take long to look at shoe". .... :cheers:
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Buck I for sure can relate to the Blacksmith shop .My first part time job was working in one when I was 9 years old ,That old man taught me stuff I still use now . and yes i did touch way to much hot stuff .
 
I restored one a few years back and it works very well, just like new. I have't painted it yet, just cleaned and lubed it. My version has the hand crank but I would be very careful being around it or remove the handle if was being operated by a belt drive, to avoid being caught with the rotating handle.

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I restored one a few years back and it works very well, just like new. I have't painted it yet, just cleaned and lubed it. My version has the hand crank but I would be very careful being around it or remove the handle if was being operated by a belt drive, to avoid being caught with the rotating handle.

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Good looking press. If these old tools could talk - what tales they could remember ... :cheers:

For the color I have seen them in either dark green (John Deere) baby blue (Starrett) or dark red (Farmall).

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Fun tools to look at. :coffee:​
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My granddad was born in 1886 and was the oldest of twelve and nine were boys who received $10,000 from my great granddad as their wedding gifts to buy ranches which they all did. In some of their work shops aka barns were drills, lathes, grinding stones, drill press, saws, forge blower, and things I can't remember that were all belt driven from an overhead system with a common electric motor. Each tool was turned on individually by a wooden handle that only adults could reach
My cousins still farm the original ranches and some of the tools are still used today.

John
 
That was a great deal of money back in the day. Glad the land is still in the family.
 
Your great grand pappy must have been a ver wealthy man. I agree nice to see land still in the same family. We have Holowiliena Station, near Cradock in South Australia that is has been in the same family since 1852. You can google it, its a good read.
 
I gave $10 for mine approximately 35 years ago and mounted it to my own homemade stand. I had 2 and gave one to my uncle. This one is designed to use a v belt or by hand crank. To have the drill bit to go down you can either turn gear at top by hand or set the lever and will advance 1,2 or 3 teeth to a time automatically depending on how hard the object your drilling is. I use to have a electric motor hooked up to but decided I didn't want to abuse something this old besides I have a modern one for everyday use. I've drilled a lot of steel by hand and its faster than you might expect.
 

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