Precision Drill Press Depth Gauge

[Music] hey this is Patrick Sullivan welcome to my shop after decades of drilling crooked holes I finally bought a small drill press about 20 years ago it was a revolution for me I never wanted to drill another hole with a handheld drill again however my little drill press had a lot of limitations so about a year ago I bought a bigger machine with more features I wanted one of those big powerful rock-solid floor-standing models like you might see in a well-equipped machine shop there are a lot of choices in this category I just couldn't make up my mind so I finally settled for this one price played almost no role in this decision okay maybe a small role the when machine claimed to have many of the features I wanted so I took a chance on it my new drill press has a fully enclosed variable speed mechanism in order to see what speed it's set for the wind has a digital readout which people in the machinist game call a dro I'm gonna throw this term around in this video so maybe you'll think I'm in the same league as YouTube stars like Chris at clickspring or this old Tony then I got to thinking what I really want to see on a dro is the depth of the hole I'm boring why can't I have that kind of DRO lots of other tools have dr.oz psychiatrists call this dr o envy I measure the depth of stopped holes with the back end of my digital caliper you can now buy a digital caliper for under ten bucks and has all the features you need metric fractions decimals auto off why can't my drill press have one of these built-in and then I thought maybe it can maybe with enough hot melt glue and determination I could convert a cheap digital caliper into the Dro that every woodworker wants or can I obviously can't attach the caliper to the drill bit itself or the Chuck I hope I don't have to explain why that would be stupid the only logical place is the quill so the question is how to fasten one jaw to the quill and the other jawed of the frame at least on this machine neither the quill nor the frame has any convenient flat surfaces that will work and I was joking about the hot melt glue somehow I need to design a couple of brackets to provide a solid flat surface for mounting the caliper I made several mock-ups of possible brackets using cardstock you know like three by five cards for those of you who are under 35 these were stiff pieces of paper that we used to play with in the dark ages before smartphones you can still buy these at historical reenactments of the 1970s I first tried to put it behind the depth stop mechanism but I found that it would interfere with the lever that adjusts the drill speed I couldn't see any alternative but to put it in front of the depth stop so I designed a window in it so I can still see the stop once I had the basic shape and size figured out I drew the shape on my computer and printed out a template this bracket has a right angle shape and I hope to be able to use some scraps of aluminum angle extrusion that I had lying around however the shape needed to be a little larger than the biggest angle that I could find locally my alternative was to cut a piece out of one-eighth inch or a three millimeter flat aluminum you could make these cuts with a hacksaw or a jigsaw but I just put a middle cutting blade on my bandsaw it slices through three millimeter aluminum like butter it's very satisfying I bent the shape into a right angle with my vice to make a nice uniform Bend you must start with a plain rectangle make the bend and then after you're satisfied with the angle cut away the parts that will be discarded to form your shape drill three small holes for the mounting screws and then to larger holes for the window I cut away the strip between the two large holes with my scroll saw again a metal cutting blade is inexpensive and makes short work of the cuts the buddies in iron casting and I expected the walls to be fairly thick I plan to drill only partway through the wall in fact the walls are not much thicker than the aluminum I used for the bracket I ended up drilling clear through once drilled I tapped the holes for machine threads I needed to remove the depth stop shaft to fit and install the bottom bracket this bracket will sit on the flat top surface of this part of the quill which supports the depth stop one of the deaths up nuts will hold it in place I cut the bottom bracket from my scrap of hardware store aluminum angle I also made one from flat stock which I bent in my advice but I thought that the preformed angle had a crisper more professional look I cut the vertical leg oversize deliberately after I mounted it I marked the line where it met the upper bracket I had then trimmed off the excess and cleaned up the edges and corners on my sander the back side of the caliper is not actually flat the back of the jaws sits about 1/10 inch or two and a half millimeters forward of the body this requires a spacer shim to allow us to screw the jaws to the bracket I then extended this spacer upward along one side of the body of the caliper this is extremely helpful in keeping the caliper aligned while attaching it this alignment piece is made from the same eighth inch or three millimeter flat stock as the brackets so the part that sits under the jaws must be reduced in thickness I don't have any milling equipment so I cautiously removed about seven tenths of a millimeter on my small router taking it off in four passes a carbide router bit has no trouble cutting aluminum but just as with very hard woods taking thin cuts increases control and safety machinists can plow through thick pieces with little fear because their work is held tightly in big vices my piece of aluminum stock was held by nothing more than double-sided carpet tape after milling one end of the workpiece to the correct thickness I positioned the caliper on it and trace the outline you I deliberately made the outline a little oversize you I cut it roughly on the bandsaw trying to leave the piece a little oversize you I then refined the shape with a disc sander to fit the caliper rather precisely I can sand much more accurately than I can cut freehand you I glued the alignment piece on to the upper bracket with CA glue I thought this might be sufficient until the jaws were screwed in place in retrospect this was a mistake once the glue is set I should have immediately drilled the bracket assembly for two screws to bond these two pieces very solidly I ended up putting in a screw at a later time when the CA glue failed under stress when I mounted the upper bracket I found that the body of the drill press was not quite square so I had to add a shim a 1/16 inch scrap of aluminum did the trick that's about one point six millimeters I grew it in place with CA glue temporarily to keep it in place while I set the screws the caliper will be held by two screws in each jaw I got out like cobalt drill bits and drilled the first hole without any problem however the hole near the pointy end was a different story obviously they hardened the jaws near the sharp end to about the hardness of a high-quality hunting knife a brand new cobalt bit but not even mar the jaw if you buy the cheapest digital calipers I'll bet the extra hard jaws will not be a problem this is a job for carbide but all I had available in this very small size were a couple of old cheap masonry bits you know the kind that are so inexpensive they throw in and for free with small drill sets I got out my dremel tool and an inexpensive small diamond wheel and reground the carbide inserts to give them both a point in an edge this only takes seconds I did it by eye and it turns out my eyes are not very good when I saw the video on my big screen I realized what a sloppy job I did nevertheless the bits worked he cut holes without any problem however the carbide was badly worn by the experience and I threw both these bits away when I was done I later bought this Bosch bit which looks like it's a vast improvement on the ones I used and it's still just a few bucks once the jaws are drilled I used those holes as a drilling guide for the threaded holes in the bracket this is the point at which the glue failed I reglued and drilled for a screw to prevent any further rotation once it's screwed in place the glue is irrelevant I drilled the bottom bracket in place to try to ensure that all the parts would fit properly I clamped it to the upper assembly and used a paper shim between the jaws this is where the alignment spacer pays off here's the caliper fully installed and operational hopefully you can see exactly how it's mounted okay let's look at the system in use with a Forstner bit to bore holes to mount rare earth magnets in soft woods you can just push the point in until the cutting edges make contact and zero the caliper then each hole only takes a few seconds you in hardwoods zero the caliper at the edge allowing just the cutting edge to contact the surface then move the wood to center the hole and drill away the digital display starts with negative numbers and finally reaches zero when the bit contacts the wood after a couple of practice holes using the Dro like this becomes very natural you can see that this magnet was set perfectly with no effort at all remember that if you change bits or alter the height of the table then you have to reserve the caliper this is nothing more than pushing the zero button so it's no big deal if you turn the work over so that a new side is facing up you should be zero as well most of the challenge in this project is in the design work making the brackets does not require any high precision you do have to ensure that the caliper is parallel to the drill bit and the quill but it's not too hard to make small adjustments if necessary can I still use the mechanical depth stop well yes but I don't really think I'm gonna need it very often can you make one of these yourself sure but the design of the brackets has to be customized to your drill press I will put up full-sized templates of the ones I used on my website just in case they might be helpful to someone I hope you enjoyed this video as always click the like button and subscribe if you haven't already thanks for watching

Channel: Patrick Sullivan

Views: 71,632

Rating: 4.9462619 out of 5

Keywords: Digital caliper, Digital Readout, Premiere_Elements_15, Woodworking, Drill Press, Customize, Adapt, Convert, Digital, Caliper, Boring, Precision

Id: mY_lK8RYdjs

Length: 13min 41sec (821 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 29 2019