Drill Press Safety & Performance Upgrades

A little while ago, I came across a broken drill press that someone was giving away. It was an older design, which was missing the motor, had the wrong drive belt and a few other issues. I thought this would be a fun little project that wouldn't take long, and I'd have a nice drill press to give away to someone once it was completed. Boy, was I wrong. This took a stupid amount of time and was more complex than I initially thought.

My goal was to install a new and more powerful motor and add modern safety features. I also installed a built-in work light and reverse function.

1. Old Drillpress
2. Replacement Motor
3. Chuck Key
4. Power switch with emergency Stop
5. Two-way switch
6. Adjustable light
7. Power supply
8. Soft start module
9. Electrical wire
10. JB Weld
11. Black Paint
12. Red Paint
13. Metal Primer
14. Oil
15. Spare Lego Bricks
16. Fine Mesh
17. Penetrating Oil
18. Grease
19. Oven Cleaner or other degreaser
20. Brake Cleaner
21. Acetone
22. Angle Grinder and Wirewheel
23. Orbital Sander
24. Soldering iron
25. Plastic Welding Tips

The first step is to disassemble the drill press and clean all its parts. Luckily, most of the drillpress came apart fairly easily, though I had to use some penetrating oil on a couple of parts.

Once I had everything apart, it was time to clean everything. I used my angle grinder with a wire wheel to scrub all components, which removed all the old paint, rust and grease.

The last step was to just spray everything down with oven cleaner (or similar degreaser) and then wash them with warm water. Make sure you dry all the parts to avoid flash rusting.

It's a bit of a personal annoyance for me whenever I see the table of a drill press filled with holes. It shows a certain level of laziness and disrespect for the tool. You should always make sure the drill is lined up with the clearance hole in the table, or lay a piece of sacrificial timber on top.

In an ideal world, I'd braze the holes with brass and mill everything flat again, but I don't have access to either of the tools needed. So I settled on a cosmetic fix of filling the holes with JB Weld.

To make sure the JB Weld would stick to the table, I made sure to thoroughly clean the holes with a small wirewheel and then washed them out with brake cleaner.

I then mixed up some JB Weld directly onto the table and filled all the holes, and left it to cure for a few days.

Once the JB Weld had cured, I came back with an orbital sander and flattened the table. I also took the time to give the table a bit of a polish and then applied a thin layer of oil to prevent rust.

You can see I had a few air bubbles in the first application that resulted in a few small holes, I just filled these again and gave it a final sand.

I had to file the clearance hole round from where the JB Weld spilled over.

I gave all the parts of the drill press at least two coats of paint, and most parts got three coats of topcoat. I was running low on black paint so it only got a couple of coats.

The underside of the base and inside the head I just left with a grey primer finish. It helps keep the parts clean and protects it from rust and I like the look.

Similar to how I polished the table, I used the orbital sander to polish the top of the base and applied a thin layer of 3-in-1 oil.

This will clean up any paint that made it onto the top, as well as give the cast iron a bit of shine.

I also used an old polishing wheel on my grinder to polish the inside of the drill head so the shaft would move freely inside.

I used an electronic level to ensure the table was level. I started by zeroing out the level on the base and then adjusted the table until it was parallel to the base. Once I have the drillpress finished I'll test everything to make sure it's correct, my assumption at this stage is that the base is the correct angle. I'll probably need to tweak it so the table is perfectly 90° relative to the drill shaft.

I now had to reinstall the return spring and tension it. The first step was to apply a little grease to the spring housing and on the spring itself. You can see in the photos that I accidentally installed it the wrong way round at first, no problem though, I just flipped it into the correct orientation.

There is a small grub screw underneath the spring housing that locks it in place, to increase the tension just rotate the housing to wind up the spring. Once you have the correct tension, just tighten the grub screw.

Lastly, the housing cover gets bolted into place.

The handles were a little rusty and needed a good clean up. I just placed the various parts in the lathe and used some sandpaper to clean them up. After the parts were basically clean, I used a buffer to polish everything.

I was originally going to nickel plate everything; however, I recently spilled my nickel plating solution. I had some Zinc Clearcoat spray paint that I hope will protect the parts from rusting again.

I reinstalled the handle centre and screwed the handles into place and the plastic balls back onto each handle.

The other three adjustment handles were assembled and reinstalled at this time.

Reinstalling the motor tensioning bar was pretty straightforward. I needed a little more tension on the spring, so I had to stretch it out slightly. I made sure to polish all the parts and apply a layer of oil so it would slide smoothly.

My first step to restore the drive case was to wash the plastic parts to remove any dirt. I gave everything a good scrub and rinsed it with water.

There was a large crack next to one of the mounting holes that needed to be fixed. I cleaned the plastic with some acetone before plastic welding it back together.

I was lucky enough to find a copy of the original manual for the drillpress where it stated the drive case is made from ABS plastic. I've never plastic-welded anything before, but I recently purchased a plastic welding tip that I installed into my soldering iron. I had a small piece of plastic welding mesh in my parts drawer and just needed some ABS filler material. Well it turns out that Lego is made from ABS, so I used that to complete the plastic weld.

I'm really happy with how my first plastic welding turned out, the weld feels very strong and I learnt a new skill.

The black ABS plastic, while strong and in good condition, had aged and gone a dull grey. I used a small amount of acetone on a rag and wiped down the drive case. This made a massive difference to the finish and brought it back to a nearly new finish. Just be careful not to use to much acetone as it will melt the plastic.

I wanted to add a light to the drill press, so I needed to drill a hole for the wire and a couple of holes to secure it in place. Once I drilled the three holes, the two smaller mounting holes were tapped with an M4 thread and the light was bolted into place.

I soldered the lights' wires to the output of a small 12V transformer and used heatshrink over the joins to insulate them. The transformer was mounted to the side using double-sided adhesive tape.

The input side of the transformer was connected to a toggle switch and from there to the mains power connection point. I used the existing hole in the side for the toggle switch.

Even though the light has its own switch, I prefer a switch on the drill press. I also wanted to de-energise the transformer on the mains side rather than just switching the 12V DC part of the circuit.

It was time to connect the earth wire to the metal of the drill press. As this is a safety feature, it's important that it has a good electrical connection. Unfortunately, the new paint job would act as an insulator so some of the paint needed to be removed.

I used a small wire wheel on a drill to clean the connection point up on both sides of the metal. The brass bolt was then connected into place with a washer and nut on the inside.

The main earth wire was then secured to the earthing point with another nut. When the motor is installed later, the earth wire for that will also be bonded to this connection.

I managed to obtain a replacement 750 Watt electric motor to use on the drill press. I was told it was off an old water pump. It runs great, but needs a little modification first. The front of the motor has a large flange built in for connecting to the pump, this needs to be removed so it will fit onto the drill press.

The first step was to unscrew the front of the motor, I needed to use a gear puller to remove the front as it's pressed in place over the bearings.

Since my lathe is pretty small, this part wouldn't fit on it. I used a grinder to cut off the bulk of the flange so I could fit it onto the lathe.

I then turned the front of the motor down until it was the correct size to be flush with the motor chassis and then turned the face of the motor so it was flat. This is so it will it will sit evenly on the new mount in the next step.

I then used some longer bolts to reassemble the motor; these bolts need to be longer to secure the motor onto the mount.

Since the motor's shaft is 11mm in diameter and the pulley has a hole 16mm in diameter, I needed to make a sleeve to bring the shaft up to the correct size. I started by cutting a length of steel bar and turning it down to the correct size to fit smoothly into the pulley. I then bored a hole the same size as the motor's shaft partway through the sleeve. I drilled a smaller hole on the other end and taped this to an M8 thread.

After test-fitting the sleeve, I cleaned the shaft and sleeve to remove any cutting oil. I mixed up some two-part epoxy glue and applied it inside the sleeve and screwed it onto the shaft firmly.

As I will be wiring the motor to run both forward and backward, there is a chance the sleeve could unscrew. To prevent this, I'll cut a slot for the grub screw in the pulley to lock onto.

I used a 5mm steel plate to make a new motor mount since the original one was connected to the pump flange. The front of the mount has four smaller holes to bolt the motor on. There is also a large hole in the centre for the motor's shaft.

The two pieces of the mount will be welded together at a 90-degree angle. I'll drill the mounting holes for this and then attach the motor to the drill press.

Once the mount was completed, I primed and painted it and then bolted the motor onto the new mount. I used nylock nuts to ensure it wouldn't loosen over time.

When I bought the motor, I was told it was a 15mm shaft, but unfortunately it turned out to be a 12mm shaft. A little frustrating but it's a solvable problem. I needed to make a sleeve to go over the shaft and bring it up to size. I'll also take the opportunity to extend it a bit longer.

I cut a length of steel off with a grinder and then turned it down to the correct diameter to fit snugly inside the pulley (15.85mm) and then bored out the inside to fit the shaft (12mm).

I then needed to trim the sleeve to the final length, which was a bit longer than the width of the pulley, as I needed to extend the shaft a little bit.

Lastly, I needed to make a hole in the sleeve to allow the grub screw to lock the pulley onto the shaft. Ideally, I'd be able to add a slot for a piece of key steel to lock everything, but I don't really have the tools for that. Instead, I made a flat spot on the shaft that should be enough to do the job.

I wanted to use a modern safety switch with an emergency stop rather than the original toggle switch. This presented a pretty big challenge as I couldn't find the correct size mounting box for the switch. I eventually gave up and made my own.

I used some large HDPE plastic pipe by heating it in an oven and then flattening it into large sheets between two boards. I layered three pieces together and cut them to the correct size. I cut a dado on one side so it will fit over the front of the drill press. After cutting a hole in the HDPE block for the switch, I attached three 'L' brackets inside the box.

The last thing I needed to do was drill a small hole for each 'L' bracket and tap it to an M4 thread. I then bolted the box onto the front of the drill.

I soldered some connectors onto the power wires and used some heat shrink to insulate them. Then I ran the wires to the main switch and connected them to it. After this, I just needed to screw the switch into place.

I really feel the extra work moving to a modern switch like this was worth the effort as it dramatically improves the safety of the drill.

This is probably a bit unnecessary, but I wanted the option to run the drill press in reverse if needed. This will be useful if using the drill press for threading, so you can run the tap out in reverse. Also, a drill bit can occasionally get 'stuck' in a piece of work, so having the option to back it out is a nice feature that doesn't really cost much more.

I had to drill a hole for the toggle switch and then run some wires from the switch back to the motor.

Another place where this drill press showed its age was the lack of a safety lockout on the gearbox. I've personally seen someone lose the tip of their finger to a drive belt, and it's a fairly easy upgrade. I have recently noticed a disturbing trend with entry-level drill presses removing this feature (I assume to lower costs).

I bolted the motor onto the drill's mounting plate and reinstalled it onto the drill press.

I managed to save the original 'Masport' stickers from the case, I glued these back in place. I needed to make up some labels for the additional switches. I printed these out, glued them in place and applied a clearcoat to protect them.

It was time for the magic moment and to test the drill press out. It spun up and ran great, and I drilled the first piece of steel.

It's been quite the journey to get to this point, and to be honest, I'm ready to move on to something else. However, I hope some of you can implement a few of these safety improvements on some of your own tools. Adding the emergency stop switch is a must for old workshop tools.