XY Slide for the Mini Drill Press

by John

When I purchased the tiny, quiet, inexpensive, beautiful drill press from AliExpress I knew that it would need an XY axis slide and very small vice.

The cross slide arrived a few days ago. It cost another $AUD65. Like the drill press it is very nicely finished, works smoothly and has no discernable backlash.

To fit the cross slide to the drill press I had to drill some precisely located holes in the drill press base, and thread them M4. Here using my Mogens Kilde tapping arm, which I made years ago. It keeps the tap vertical and breakages are rare when I use it. Then the cross slide was attached.
The mini drill press with XY cross slide. It has 40mm of movement in X and Y. I already had a tiny toolmakers vice which fitted to the cross slide platform easily.

Then I drilled some 0.4mm holes at 1mm centers in the scrap of wood…..

You can just see the 0.4mm carbide drill bit if you magnify the second picture.

IF I make another model ship I expect that this setup will work well for drilling spars, masts and belaying pin racks.