machines which I have made, am making, or intend to make, and some other stuff. If you find this site interesting, please leave a comment. I read every comment and respond to most. n.b. There is a list of my first 800 posts in my post of 17 June 2021, titled "800 Posts"
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.
I have a few drill presses. I often use my big CNC milling machine where I want best accuracy, but it takes time to set up, and weighs 3 tons, so it is probably not suitable for use in our home TV room which is the location where I wanted a small drill press, without disturbing SWMBO watching her favourite British whodunnit shows.
So this is the drill press which I purchased recently, so I could do my ship modeling at home in the evenings on my desk in the TV room.
It is 180mm high and the base is 80mm x 100mm. So yes it is very small. In fact it is advertised as a watch repairers tool. It plugs into 240v supply, but the on-off speed controller reduces the voltage to 12v, 0.2-2.0 amps.
There are 3 types of chuck advertised for the drill. An 8er collet holder, a 3 jaw chuck, and a 1/8″ fixed diameter chuck which requires drill bits with a 1/8″ shaft. I chose the 1/8″ fixed dia chuck because sets of carbide drill bits with 1/8″ shafts are cheap and easily available (for $AUD5 per set), and my experience with 3 jaw Dremel chucks shows that they are fiddly to load with fine drill bits, and not particularly accurate. The er collets would be OK, but require a different collet for each drill size, extra cost and extra fiddling to load.
The drill itself cost less than $100 post included, from AliExpress. It is beautifully finished, and feels quite tight. The side insertion of the power cable is not ideal, and the height adjustment tightening knob is a bit small so I will make a new bigger knob soon.
I also plan to install an X-Y axis and vise later.
A pinch test with the drill running shows a surprising amount of torque from the tiny motor. I had no problem drilling 12mm deep holes in hardwood with a 0.8mm drill bit.
An advertisement for the drill shows it being used to drill brass clock gears for re-shafting, but I doubt that it will be good at drilling ferrous metals.
As far as using it with SWMBO watching TV in the same room, it IS very quiet. Much quieter than a Dremel drill which I have used previously.
I think that it will be ideal for drilling sub millimeter holes in masts and spars and belaying pin racks.
Just one word of caution for prospective buyers. Read the advertisement VERY carefully, to see exactly what is being offered for the price. I noticed a tendency for vendors to show photos of the drill press loaded with all sorts of accessories which are not included in the advertised price. I purchased mine from an Australian AliExpress supplier, and it arrived within a few days. Very happy with my purchase.
The mill is almost completely assembled. Just waiting for some small connectors to arrive so I can fit the trapezoidal screws and their nuts.
Meanwhile, a couple of hiccups.
The large angle plate is positioned parallel to the mill T slots using the tight fitting pegs seen. The workpiece is squared to the base. And the mill head is close to its maximum height.
Here I am drilling the X axis plate with a 2.5mm bit. This was an awkward part to position accurately, but with the above setup the first hole was drilled successfully. But just as I was about to retract the drill from the second hole, the bit broke! I had used lubricant, and retracted several times, but aluminium is sticky, and the bit end was embedded beyond reach. Long story short, nothing worked, including trying to drill it with a carbide cutter. Eventually I drilled a hole just beyond the end of the bit, and levered it out. But the hole was distorted, and unable to be tapped accurately, so I embedded a nut in a machined pocket and that worked OK, but it looked out of place.
That plate had taken about 3 hours to make, drill and tap all of the holes. But I was not happy. So next day, I made another one. With the experience gained from the first one, the second plate was made in only about 1.5 hours. So I set it up to drill those holes in the end of the 388mm long plate. And bugger me, the drill broke again!!! Stuffed around for a while, but no luck extracting the broken drill, so I made another X axis plate. This time I drilled the end holes, and tapped them first. No problems this time. Then finished the rest of the plate in under an hour. Installed it. All fitted well.
So that was the only significant problem in the build so far.
Then a package of parts arrived from AliExpress, including hardened steel rods, linear bearings, ball bearings trapezoidal screws, and nuts for the screws and some more. I have previously had only good experiences buying vis AliExpress, but this lot had some disappointing quality issues.
First, I noted that the bearings seemed to be a bit sloppy on the 8mm steel rods.
The 8mm steel rods were actually 7.97mm, more than 1 thou undersized.
Then I noted that all of the 400mm steel rods were bent, quite noticeably. OK, maybe not too disastrously, but not up to scratch for a supposedly precision item. I will probably be able to straighten them well enough to use, but not what I expected. They were packaged in bubble wrap inside the soft envelope. But surely a hardened, polished, supposedly precision made rod would have warranted a more substantial container.
Then I checked the trapezoidal screws and the nuts. The nuts were quite markedly wobbly on the screws, with an excessive amount of end play. Very poor quality! I had separately ordered some spring loaded anti backlash nuts which should be adequate for the job, but if I was relying on the nuts supplied with the screws I would be really pissed off. At least the screws were not bent, which makes me think that the bends on the steel rods did not occur in the postage but was a manufacturing fault.
One of the trapezoidal threads with a spring loaded antibacklash nut bottom, and the ordinary nuts top and on the right side.
I have requested that the steel rods be returned to AliExpress which would result in a refund ($AUD52), but on reflection I will probably not proceed with the return. I have another project in mind where the undersized rods will not matter. (the rope seizing and serving machine for model ship ropes).
johnsmachines 