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So you guys and gals who have bench-top drill presses, but who don't have any bench top to spare, what kind of stand do you have your drill press on?
I want to make something that will:
be sturdy,
not tip over,
be portable,
have some storage,
be simple to build,
not look awful, but I'm not looking for fine furniture either, and
might have some other use if/when I get a floor standing drill press.
Pictures wanted.
How about a used 2 drawer metal filing cabinet ?
I just got a bench top dp and I just built a top and used the base from my old crapsman table saw. I also got a new Grizzly ts so I could spare the base from the old one.
Travis
I built mine a few years ago out of 2x4s and a chunk of plywood. It doesn't roll, but there's storage under it. Actually, I used it as a kind of skill-building project, making bridle joints. Nobody would describe it as fine furniture, or even nice shop furniture. But it works.
My DP is on a cheap particle board filing cabinet. It gets rolled out of the way every so often. It's been on there for six or seven years I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by patrick anderson
FWIW,
Wes
OK John seeing as you wanted pics, here is my humble effort to keep 'el cheapo' benchpress off my benchtop. I used one of those old office wall mounted shelves - the kind with the lift up door that I found at the recyclers for AUS$5. Turned it on it's side and put the wheels on it and that was basically it.
It is still a work in progress, I'm mucking around with a few options for the table with dovetail mdf inserts, will probably arrange some hold downs too.
All up the press is now portable and doesn't take up too much space(which is good given all the crap in my shed at the moment) and the cost of the shelf would be less than the cost of ply / mdf / radiata.
PS. My first post on this forum :)
John
Here's a drill press cabinet I made several years ago. I believe I based it off of plans that may have been in Woodsmith.
Dimensions are 25 inches wide by 20 inches deep by 34 inches high. All 3/4 birch plywood that has been edge-banded.
Drawer is on full-extension slides. Two doors with piano hinges and a simple shelf with adjustment pins inside. It's worked well for me.
Base has four levelers made from 3/8 inch carriage bolts screwed into T-nuts held in blocks. There are holes drilled through the bottom of the cabinet to allow a screwdriver to adjust the leveling using slots that were sawed across the bolt ends.
Neil
I have a floor standing DP, so my experience is not exactly what you want, but the obvious theme is to make a tool cabinet on casters for this. It is what I did for my grinder station and there is another tool cabinet underneath the DP. If the benchtop DP is light enough to move, then you might try what I ended up with for my Performax 10 20 drum sander: put it on a base (with handles) and keep it on top of the router table. I've run out of floor space and it was the next best alternative.
John, here's a couple of pics of a wall mounted stand for a bench top drill press:
Attachment 56178
Attachment 56179
It rests of large dowels formerly supporting a couple of patio umbrellas. The shelf gives storage for bits etc, behind, and there's space for the dog's cage and a folding table behind the legs.
It is positioned so the car just misses the right front leg when the tire hits the stop on the floor. And the vac hookup is pretty convenient!
All the best, Tom
I've been designing a bench-top drill press stand off and on for the last couple weeks. Here's what I came up with.
The bench top drill press I have is from about 1937 and weighs over 150 lbs. The motor hangs way off the back and has to be moved in and out on rails when you change speed with the pulleys. That much weight that high made me want to maximize the width of the base. With the extra space, I decided to put my grinder on the other side of the stand. The drawers are accessible from both the front and the back. That means there's no back to add strength to the cabinet, so the shelf supports do double duty as buttresses.
Construction will be good plywood assembled with pocket screws and glue. The layouts below are based on 4x8 sheets of 1/4", 1/2" and 3/4" ply. I made up a cut-list which matches the labels on each piece from the layout. The wheels are 3" double locking casters from Grizzly, I should be able to find the drawer pulls locally. If I can find a piece of steel for the top, I'll use that, otherwise I'll use some laminate.
The drawers will be false-front (two fronts since they open both ways) 1/2" ply with a 1/4" ply floating bottom assembled with pocket screws and glue.
I'm not sure about this part. The drawers will rest on 1/4" dust shelves which also serve as runners/kickers. That's pretty odd, but given that the place where they are supporting the drawers is 1/8th or less from the wall, I would think it should be more than strong enough. Tell me if I'm crazy.:confused:
The *.skp itself is in the plans forum. I can't start building until it's warm enough for me to work in the garage without shivering.
Attachment 56293 Attachment 56294 Attachment 56295 Attachment 56296 Attachment 56297
I am not sure what you've got planned for those shelves, but they look like dust collectors to me. I prefer my bits and everything in shallow drawers. And while the two way through drawers are cool, if this is going to live against a wall most of the time, why bother? Even when you pull it out, you would still access it from in front, right?
Just a few thoughts to chew on, worth twice what you paid.
I made this for my Delta variable-speed desktop drill press several years ago. The table is also home-made as well. The cabinet is on locking casters, and has sides of MDF with top and bottom of 3/4 ply edged with jatoba. The top also has melamine glued to the plywood. The front frame and drawer fronts are also jatoba. The drawers have 24-inch full extension slides and hold drill bits of all sorts, plus extra stuff. Very handy.
Here's my Mark II plan.
Perhaps I'm paranoid, but I worry about how top heavy this puppy is so this is just over 24 x 26 across the bottom, though with swivel casters, it will sometimes be smaller.
Tom is right about the shelves. No dust collector debates here; those would be terribly inefficient dust collectors and probably not good for much else.
I also looked at the plan and saw how I could eliminate stopped dados without any sacrifice. I also reallized that by making it a little smaller, I could make much more efficient use of plywood, but I didn't make that change. I increased the height a bit for ergonomics. The most recent *.skp is in the plans section again.
I built a two drawer cabinet for mine.
I now wish I'd built shallower drawers. It's tough getting to some of the stuff piled underneath sometimes.
But it's better than nothing!
John, you might do what we used to do on anesthesia machines to keep them from getting tipped over. We added a box to the bottom between the wheels and filled it with lead bars. This was on machines that had a second ventilator hanging off the side. It was a little bit of a disruption when an anethesia machine would get tipped over during a case. The lead prevented that.
You might use sand instead of lead. I think you'd move the CG down enough with that.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...PressStand.jpg
Couple of quick thoughts:
1 - You could bolt the casters near the edge and ends of hardwood ~2x4s* and then screw the 2x4s to the bottom of the cabinet so the ends hang out an inch or so each way (sides and front/back). This puts the casters a little further out for better tippy control. I did this on a chest high cabinet with grinders on top and the wider stance works fine without compromise.
2 - Is there any reason your drawers do not go full width?
*Using 2" thick material lets you countersink the bolt heads so the wood can be flush with the cabinet bottom. Surely thinner wood can work some other way.
Good ideas. The drawers are less than full width for two reasons and one of them relates to Dave's idea to add weight to the bottom.
Since I would be using the grinder from one side and the drill press from the other, the drawers pull out in both directions. That means there's no back to keep the cabinet from wracking. To compensate for that, I used the sides as a torsion structure. I didn't want to have the casters on outriggers simply because I know I'll stub my toes on them. That's why the box is so wide.
Also, having the sides open gives me the option of poring sand into the torsion box if I feel it is necessary to lower the center of gravity. If that is not sufficient, a box attached between the casters would be the way to go. I'll play with the design a little to see how I could do that eligantly. At very least, I'd need clearance for bolt heads between the bottom drawer and the bottom of the case.
If there's anything I want to be stable when I'm under sedation, it is the anesthesieologist and his or her equipment. (I suppose the surgeon too, but most of the ones I've met are not that stable.)
Good reasons. I did not realize that you would be grinding from the other side. Sounds like you have a good overall plan.