Shim up a drill press?

Fletch Helical

Fletch Helical

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Sep 29, 2009
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So after seeing the holes I made in my first set of scales and say the Corby's line up I took for granted that I was squared up. Last night I took another pair of scales drilled them for a knife, everything turned out great.....Except one of the bolts doesn't sit perfectly straight. So I need to square up my table on my press. I spun a coat hanger around the table and can see where I'm low. My problem is: What's the best way/material to shim up the table to make it square?

My table has a piece of round stock that sticks off the bottom of it and goes into a round collar that I can tighten/loosen to spin the table around. So my guess is I need to build up various spots on that round collar would be the easiest route. As opposed to trying to work off the bottom of the table right?

So what is the best way to go about doing this? My first inclination was good old duct tape and just keep layering it in spots that need it. But seems like it would flatten out and not be consistent.
 
Get a piece of steel/aluminum/micarta etc and attach it to the old table with jb weld. Use washers under it to shim it up perfectly level.
 
The best way would be a permanent or adjustable fix. If you could tap the socket were the table shaft slips into you could place a couple of socket headed cap-screws to take out some slop and level out the table. This would give you a little bit of adjustment and hopefully solve the problem. Or you could shim the socket to make the fix a bit more permanent. You may need to do a little bit of stock removal to get the table level and square. Try to do this on the socket and post if the surface of the table is in good condition. If the surface is mess up then see if you can have it turned to true it up before you try any further adjustments.
 
Not understanding why I need to attach something to the bottom of the table? What type of washers are you suggesting? The tubing is 1 3/4" in diameter.

AC, If I'm understanding you correctly are you suggesting drill and tap the underside of the table then put in a few flat head screws to use as my leveling system?
 
Thanks Gix, replied.

So you guys know I have basically no holes anywhere in my table. It's a solid peice of steel that has grooves milled into it in an "x" shape to slide a vice around in. I don't even have a center hole in the table all my drilling requires the material to be held in a vice if I want to trill completely through. If you guys need a visual lemme know I'll get some pics up.
 
my buddy charlie has a drill press i use if his mill is in use. after drilling a few test holes i found the holes were not drilled square. i chucked a piece of reamer blank in the chuck and checked the table with a square and found the table to be uneven in several areas.
we took the table off and chucked it up in his lathe and used a dial indicator to check the table surface and found out it wasnt square to the shaft. after facing off the table it is now square when drilling holes.
 
A picture of the drill press would help, most have a bolt that will allow adjustment side to side but there is not adjustment front to back, you can place a shim under the upper or lower flange where the bolt is to adjust front to back. My old drill press was such a mess that I made a round aluminium plate with 4 adjustment screws, set it on the table, spin your coat hanger and adjust the screws to square.
 
I thought I had a pic of the full press but must have deleted it when I cleaned up my photobucket account. Anyway it is a fairly old Central Machinery 16 speed press. It's not as cheap as the newer ones, the thing weighs quite a bit and it all metal, no plastic anywhere on it. It's the one I posted a while back that I got off Craigslist if anyone remembers that one.

Anyway here are the pics of the critical areas.

Here is a top down shot of the table itself

press1.jpg


Here is a pic with the table removed, the hole with the handle on the side is where the round stock slides into when you set the table on it.

press2.jpg


And here is a pic with the table turned sideways just for kicks.

press3.jpg
 
If this were mine I would make another AL plate with screws to square it, takes just a couple of second to set up, I think it woulg tough to get square and keep square with the type of locking collar that you have, you would need to shim inside the collar.

Square piece of AL with 4 screws to level and two to hold in place.
 
Do you think it's possible to possibly shim it with something like gasket material around the tubing? Or maybe try a plastic washer and sand it down in spots to make it work?

My problem is I rally have no availability to make a table like you're describing.... I don't think. Wouldn't the plate still have to fit inside that collar somehow? My limited experience with making knives is about the most metal working experience I have. Minus what little work I did in Jr high which consisted of tack welding a metal box and welding up a small cassette holder. So my fabricating skills are pretty much useless.
 
You could weld blocks on either end of the locking arm, drill a new hole with a holesaw so that it would be square with the spindle, and then notch the blocks with an angle grinder so that it clamps again. Or if you were ballsy you could lop off the arm and work out a mechanism that would allow you to tilt the table.
 
There are a couple of things you can try.

First rotate the table and see if the alignment gets better or worse, maybe you can remove some this way. Also see how the alignment changes when you tighten the collar, maybe you can leave it a little loose if it pulls the table out of alignment.

second try to file the surface that it sits on to make it set level, try with collar snug once again to see of collar pulls out of alignment.

third if it is the collar you will need to shim between the collar and the post, you will need very small shims, you can get shims or thin metal at most hobby stores. Really thin less than 0.05 unless it really out of alignment
 
if there is a machine shop close to you, i would see if they can check your table for square to the shaft and for an uneven or wharped top. if its not square to the shaft or a wharped top, you cant do much to fix the problem by shimming elsewhere. moving the table up and down could change things too.
 
Offhand I don't know of many machine shops, I guess if need be I can check the phone book. What about the idea of just putting something on top of the table that is there that is adjustable? Maybe not the best suggestion but what about even something like a MDF board or a piece of corian, micarta etc. that is thick enough to put a few screws in the bottom of and level that off the existing table?

If I put something like that on the existing table and then put a level on it a few different directions, or spun a coat hanger on it.... Would that work? As of right now I'm using the thing only to drill holes in steel and scales. So I likely won't be moving it up and down all that much yet anyway. Granted not a permanent fix but since I have to use a vice on it all the time anyway I would just need something big enough to move the vice on around a bit wouldn't I?
 
if the drill press is on a level table you can check the table with a level to if it is level. use a straight edge and check the table top to see if its wharped. pm me when you're around the phone and i'll give you a call and talk you through some other tests you can do to find the problem so you can fix it.
 
Well just got off the phone with Richard turns out that when I chuck the coat hanger in there and spin the table everything is fine. So it looks like the problem is hopefully the bearings either that or the quill. Because I can chuck a bit in there and if I wiggle it there is some slop.
 
If you really trust the coat hanger then that's cool, but to be really sure a dial indicator is the way to go.I used a piece of 3/8 bolt with the flats ground off with a piece of 1x3" angle iron welded &90deg and drilled to hold the indicator. I can take a pic, it is really basic. Oh and btw you can use these in the link to secure the plate on top down with the bolts all you have to do is figure out what size the T slots are. They use these on mill worktables.

here is an example. dunno if this is your size.
http://www.grizzly.com/products/T-Slot-Nuts-pk-of-4-7-16-Slot-3-8-16/G9511


Or it could be your bearings. My quill has slop but my table was still not perfectly square.
 
gixxer, i had fletch wiggle the quill and it moved quite a bit. there is nothing he can do to the table that will fix the problem. the table is fine. when you can grab the chuck and wiggle it side to side, thats a good sign the bearings are worn and need replaced. he drilled one hole that was perfect and one that was off. if the table was out of square both holes would have been off.

when he spun the table with the coat hanger lightly touching the table it touched all the way around and didnt move. to me thats just as good as a dial indicator. he can find out how much its out by laying a rule on the table, put a straight pointed pin in the chuck and wiggle it back and forth. that will give him a good idea how much movement he has.
 
there should be a screw on the head of the drill press to take out any minor slop in the quill . At least there is on mine .
 
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