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No kidding, the guy only wanted 120 dollars for it. I paid 50 more for delivery, but swapped the motor because it was 3 phase with the motor on my current (a Rexon 15" drill press with a 3/4 HP motor). It was a lot of work because the reeve drive got frozen due to neglect but I was able to free them and now it works great. Not sure why but the motor initially turned very slowly and stalled, so I turned the belt by hand and adjusted the speed control until the belt at both end is at the same position, and then the machine started up normally without stalling.

The machine is very heavy, and the quill is very solid unlike my Rexon drill press (the spline has a little bit of clicking noise when you turn it by hand, even brand new)

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

An oldie but looks like a good piece of gear.

The mystery is how it ended up in Taiwan...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Great find. Wish I were as lucky but I'm pretty happy to also be in the "just got a new drill press club"!!! Draper 550 watt floor mounted.

I searched on eBay and the like for months and didn't see anything suitable.

That's a super nice find. Congrats.

You know there's a huge difference between this Powermatic than my original drill press (a bench top 15" drill press similar to Grizzly G7493). Aside from the variable speed drive, the drill press is massive. Each part (head, column, base, etc.) is heavy enough when I disassembled the drill press to move it, it was still heavy enough that when I moved it with a friend (this is just the base, table, and column) we moved it with great difficulty. The Grizzly-like drill press on the other hand is very light. The head is probably about the heaviest part but I could move the drill press myself with moderate difficulty. In fact the delivery person who delivered it carried it all by himself... it just wasn't that heavy at all.

The column is also heavier on the powermatic.... Powermatic's column is very close to 1/4" thick (according to my dial caliper, it was maybe .05" short of 1/4") while the Grizzly's is less than 1/8" thick. I still wished I could use the original 3 phase motor because it was probably a lot smoother than the Grizzly motor I ended up installing on the Powermatic. The Grizzly motor vibrates quite a bit and only with the addition of rubber washer did the vibration get better.

Does anyone have a current production Powermatic 2800B? I heard some pretty bad things about them including lots of vibration and runout problems...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Congratulations Tai, that is one fantastic drill press. That's the old USA made Powermatic before Jet bought the company. It's a lot heavier because it's a production machine suitable for drilling metal all day long in a factory type setting.

It should run smooth as silk, go to owwm.org for help.

Kevin Looker

ps
Here's the manual http://www.vintagemachinery.org/pubs/de ... px?id=1297

Oops, that's not the manual, go here & you'll find it
http://www.vintagemachinery.org/mfginde ... =false&fl=

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I don't think it's the drive system (pulley, spindle, etc.) causing the vibration... I ran the motor by itself without anything connected to it and it vibrated quite a bit. So I basically remounted the motor with rubber washer because I don't know how to get a motor balanced. I also notice there's a little (maybe .005") runout in the pulleys... I should mention the motor is NOT original, because the original motor is 3 phase so I can't use it. My other drill press has a single phase motor so I used that. I had a machine shop enlarge the bore in the pulley a little bit so it could accept a metric shaft. I'm sure the original motor is very smooth and balanced because it turns effortlessly with I just spin the shaft.

How do I find out what wire goes where because I snipped a lot of wires off of the original motor. There are 2 groups of wires, one group has 4 wires and the other group has 5 wires. They are all the same color so I can't tell which goes where. I need to know this in case I decide to hook it up to a VFD later...

I really have to add that I don't need to tram this drill press to use the Wagner Safe T Planer at all... it is pretty level and square out of the box. I did place a single sheet of copy paper under the wooden top to fine correct it. My last drill press was terrible in this regard (it requires several pieces of wood veneer and the table loses square if you unlock it)

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Tai,
Great find. Like Kevin said, OWWM is the place you need to check out. I have received a ton of help from that forum on a recent restoration I have been working on.

In the future, if you want to run a 3 phase motor, look into a device called a VFD. They allow you to run a 3 phase motor on 1 phase power- either 110 or 220.

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ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
http://elevatelutherie.com
&
http://ensorguitars.com

You should be able to find a wiring diagram online for that particular motor. How you wire it depends on which voltage you are going to use on the motor- 220 or 440.

_________________
ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
http://elevatelutherie.com
&
http://ensorguitars.com

The motor has a wiring diagram but I do not know which wire is what... They are all unlabeled and the same color!

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

The vibration is probably because the re-bore on the pulley isn't centred very well. Nice find on the drill press though!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

The Variable Frequency Drive mentioned by Chris is a newish gadget that many are not aware of, but should be if you are into large tools. They're not real cheap, but allow access to older 3 phase machines for the small shop that does not have 3 phase power. My 3 H.P. VFD was $400.00 and incredibly simple to hook up. I run a 12" Northfield H.D. jointer on it. I've previously had a rotary converter in my shop to run a resaw, but this VFD is really the cat's meow! $1800.00 for the jointer, $400.00 for the VFD, $1300.00 for a spiral carbide Byrd head, about $400.00 for new bearings, etc., and I now have a gorgeous jointer that currently cost over $18000.00 on the Northfield website plus shipping to Hawaii for 2000 pounds which would be another couple of thousand $. I can't say enough good stuff about VFD's.

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“ The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away” Pablo Picasso

Partial thread hijack.

Here's my Powermatic with VFD.
It has a small 1/2hp 3-phase motor but my VFD takes 110V input & puts out 220V 3-phase.
It also allows me to do electronic variable speed control using a pot.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I never seen a VFD that takes 110v. All the ones I seen only do 220 1 phase...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Here is the one I just got for my "new", old spindle sander:
http://www.automationdirect.com/adc/Shopping/Catalog/Drives/GS1_(120_-z-_230_VAC_V-z-Hz_Control)/GS1_Drive_Units_(120_-z-_230_VAC)/GS1-10P5

_________________
ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
http://elevatelutherie.com
&
http://ensorguitars.com

I don't know how much it will cost to ship to me, but I figure 220v would be more useful if I decide to take it to Europe because they do not use 110 there.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I bought mine from automation direct too. Actually I've bought 3.

They're a great company to deal with because they keep the products in stock & they support what they sell.

I love VFD's. Besides converting single to 3-phase, they also give you variable speed control, soft starting and braking.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Also these fine old tools tend to be cheaper with a motor that the general garage power cant support. The VFD saves you the hassle of spending more money to find a motor that will fit.

Update: I polished the column a bit to remove the rust and make it look nicer, so that the parts can slide up and down it without much difficulty. I wish I could get ALL rust off but that would mean probably removing at least .020" off of the diameter of the column - something that would require a lathe to do and would also make the column too small to fit properly. The original handle actually broke off and I had to remove what's left of the handle from the hub... not an easy job because one of them is jammed in there really good, the other one broke during transit. I replaced it with the handle from my previous drill press... it is the exact same thread.

The problem now is I am giving it about a month, the rust will come right back with vengeance! I can't find Boeshield T9 so not sure what else I can use to keep rust off. For now I just rubbed a thin layer of bearing grease all over the column.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

This will sound crazy since you don't have the drill press apart, but you can remove that surface rust and anything rust that is in the pits by soaking the column in a citric acid bath. I've done it with just the powdered citric acid they use for canning. The citric acid only attacks the rust and leaves the good metal intact.

Then coat the column in some paraffin mixed in mineral spirits. It will protect it for the most part. I did mine several years ago and it looks fine now. I brush it on when it is warm and melty. Then let it dry and buff it out.

I used Oxalic acid but thought I should have used citric acid... Oxalic acid is toxic from what I heard and when I soaked parts in it the good metal turned dull and dark... I'm not sure if oxalic acid attacks bare metal as well.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Citric acid will turn it dark and dull as well. But I've had good luck polishing it. If you look at that delta badge on the front of that press in the original picture, you can sort of see that it is coated in rust. I soaked it in citric acid till I could make out the raised letters before I painted it. That press is from 1945 and during WWII they used steel instead of aluminum on some of the badges.