My grandfather's uncle used to do a bit of wood working way back when. Some of his tools were passed on to my grandfather who dabbled in it as well. This summer I spent some time in the basement cleaning out the corners and thought I'd get a good look over of some of the equipment. I found a table saw, band saw, scroll saw and drill press. The tools were moved out to my barn to make room for storage in the basement for later evaluation. When I first took the drill press out, I started to look it over and noticed it was a Walker Turner. Everything seemed to turn OK by hand, so I plugged it in and the motor was smoking something fierce. So again I threw it in the corner of the barn for a rainy day project. Recently, I started checking it out. The scroll saw motor was the same HP and RPM so I figured I would just switch em out. Problem is, they mount differently and I would have to fab up some type of adapter. Well, last night I got serious. I pulled the old motor, pulled the donor from the scroll saw and tried to figure it out. I grabbed some old 3/4" plywood I had laying around and made up a quick adapter plate thinking it wouldn't be permanent. I plugged the motor in and of course it was running in the wrong direction. Me not knowing anything about motors, I had no clue how to reverse it. After a quick google search today, I knew what I had to do. Sure enough, I split the motors housing and there were two wires in there just as the internet search had said. I switched them from one to the other and it was running the correct direction. So I put some oil and grease on the moving bits, and it's running smooth for the most part. I love old things like this. I wont have much use for the saws, but I've been wanting an old drill press for a long time. Too bad it took me this long to figure out there was one right under my nose. There's a slight wobble to the chuck, so I need to take it down and figure out how to replace the bushings. Once that's taken care of, it should last me a good long time.
Evanrude, Looks great.. Obviously, it would not meet OSHA standards but it gets the job done. Actually, a nice simply design. Thanks for posting it up. I have never seen one like that.
It's old, that's for sure. I seen a similar one on the internet somewhere, it was mentioned that it's from the 30's. Don't know how accurate that is, but that's what they said. Long time before safety was ever taken seriously. It's different, that's kind of why I wanted to post it.
Last place I worked at had a similar one. The motor was hinged and the weight of the motor kept tension on belt. It worked great for light work but heavy drilling it slipped, needed a helper to push down on the motor.
I've seen some that it looks like the motor is tilted and not perpendicular to the chuck. Must be they were like the one you're describing. Didn't realize they made them like that. This one tensions the belt via the bracket with the two pulleys. There's a slot in it and you just slide it forward or back to set tension and tighten it down.
Nice little drill press, I have two older drill presses, a bench top Rockwell delta and floor Buffalo. The Buffalo was a mess when I got it, ( a coworker gave it to me), I took it all apart and restored it. Works great now. The one you have would look really nice if you restored it.
Definitely going to do the resto it deserves. I will tear into it someday. For now it's my only drill press, so it may be a while. A google search has turned up a couple very nice restos on these. Here's a really nice one I found!
