parallels

[Susquatch]

Yeah the drill press even with the xy vise is not a mill.

My old Beaver drill press has thrust bearings in it for sideways loads and the chuck has a threaded collar so it cannot come off. As a result, it can (and did) do a fair bit of light milling. It might even be comparable to some of the small bench top mills available today.

The xy is for positioning to drill. It’s convenient.

I can't see the point at all for stabilizing the column rotation indexing on drill presses without side thrust bearings. But I certainly can see the point of an x-y table. They work great for times when you need to drill spaced holes or arrays which are very common tasks.

On a drill press I’m not sure the alignment issue when moving the table height is worth trying to solve.

Ya, I don't think it is worth all the extra effort to maintain vertical indexing. Just plan your work sequence to work around the issue for those few times when it is an issue.

 

[ElectronWrangler]

OR buy a suitable single phase motor and swap that in instead.

That might be ok. On a surface grinder you can tell the difference between a single and three phase motor by the pattern left on the work piece.

 

[140mower]

This is very noticeable on the shaper as well. I had this strange "ladder" pattern that I had attributed to the teeth on the bull gear. Then I swapped over to a 3 phase motor, and the pattern was virtually eliminated.