I restore a very cool and useful geared drill press that weights around 250kg (550lbs) made by "Officine Meccaniche Mazzoni" in Milan around 1950 (No date found on the drill press so hard to tell precisely when was actually made). The gearbox allows shift between three speed that combined with two speed of the three phase 1.5hp motor enable six speeds to the quill. It's very easy to run any of the six speed as there are no belts to move, just a cople of knobs to turn. I love this so much!
Other than gearbox the drill press it's very straight forward with the only extra of fine quill downfeed via front wheel.
Luckily this machine was in great mechanical condition to start with, not a single broken tooth on gears and not much wear either. Only had to swap table, front wheel and some knobs here and there if too damaged. I had all those parts already so with some turning it has been very easy to adapt things. Of couse the table I swapped is not in perfect condition, I would have loved to turn the front face flat and smooth as there is more than enough material to do so, but my metal lathe it's too small, not enough room to chuck up the table from the other side. I'll have it done if I end up setting up a pump for work cooling as the lip of the table it's also not as thick as the table itself so I guess it would make it harder to catch all cooling fuild. We will see! I'd like to do it as the drill press it's designed to use one with cooling fluid tank in the base and 80mm pump recesses.
If you wonder about cost to get and fix this here are some costs:
- Drill press 250€
- VFD 50€
- Iso32 oil 15€
- Switches and light 30€
- Consumables 50€ more or less
- Paint I had from a previous restoration but it's another 20€ if I had to buy
So all in all we are looking at around 400€. It's not cheap, I know, but it's definetly worth this beauty of cast iron that will serve me well for time to come!
As for how long it took I'd say around 130-150hrs. I started six months ago but did 90% of the work over the last two weeks. Takes long time just because it's so big. Nothing complicated at all!
I usually write a detailed list of product and operations, but for this kind of super long project I have my doubt is useful. So instead I'll list chapters below.
Anyway, in general I did my best to scrape off old paint and de-grease everything before painting with dark green hammered finish paint.
For rust removal I used different methods:
- Steel wire wheel for heavy rust on non critical surfaces like base and work table.
- Scotch brite pads for large machined surfaces like column, quill and meeting surfaces.
- Ultrasonic cleaner with rust removal fluid for small parts like nuts and bolts.
- Citric acid and water for cooling fluid tank and slots on work table and base.
- Some wire wheeling on the bench grinder here and there.
If you have any specific question ask in comments, I'll do my best to reply to frequently asked ones and maybe I'll set a Q&A section below.
0:00 Disassembly
6:11 Base
8:41 Column
9:37 Work Table Support
10:53 Work Table
12:49 Head
13:16 Quill And Quill Feed
16:53 Gearbox
18:49 Motor
21:24 Wiring
23:40 Finishing Touches
24:27 Test
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