I spent a good portion of the day yesterday making some progress on my drill press restoration. I was able to break it down the rest of the way and start cleaning some parts. If you recall in my last post I did not remove the chuck prior to removing the quill out of the head. I quickly realized that it would be hard to remove the chuck while the quill was out of the head because the leverage advantage is now gone without it being secured in place while tapping away at the chuck to get it to come off. Ken Rassmusen confirmed my concerns in my last post as well. So I went ahead and re-installed the quill with the chuck back into the head, it was not big deal really, it took all of 3 minutes to do so and I am glad I did. Once back in the head I was able to take a wedge and tap between the quill and the chuck with the leverage I needed. It was not budging. I soaked it WD-40 and let the liquid run down the top of the chuck. I let it set for about 10 minutes and I came back with the wedge and after about 3 taps the chuck fell right off. It actually surprised me how easily it came off.

Quill with chuck still attached

Chuck is off! Yay!! in the below picture you can also see I have the upper bearing stop collar removed up the shaft a bit allowing the center shaft to come out of the quill. I had to tap the top of the center shaft to break loose the upper bearing. One problem I am going to have is removing the lower bearing (above the chuck) all the way up the shaft. How do I do this? And getting one back on as well.

Now I was trying to remove the hand wheel gear that moves the quill up and down. But there was this pesky nib that holds the spring in place that was preventing me from sliding the gear out of the head. It appeared to me to be a pressure fit nib that I could force out. As you can see I broke the top off, and after that I found that it was threaded! It came off easily by just finger turning it out of the shaft! This was my first oops, and it really ticked me off.

Next pic you can see the way it was supposed to be removed.

Once I got the press completely apart, I started wire wheeling all the rust and 70 years of sweat and grime off the handles and other parts. This was pretty fun because I actually got to see some shine coming through.

I also created a notebook for the Walker Turner manual that Larry Buskirk emailed me. I believe the manual came from the good folks over at OWWM. There abounds a ton of information for old machinery.

The next pic is my press broken down.

I labeled some of the bolts with blue tape, I know when it's time to reassemble, I'll have a hard time telling where they went.

I also have a box for each component of the press, one box for all motor components with plastic baggies holding small parts and the baggies are labeled as well.

And a box for anything that has to do with the press head, holding the quill and other gear parts with baggies as well and labeled.

Well that's it for now folks, I am going out into the ol shop now to put in some more time on the wire wheel and cleaning parts. See ya ll when we get back!

John Morris
The Patriot Woodworker