Making a replacement quill spring case
Difficulty Level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane):
Easy
Process:
When I bought a 10" king drill press at one of Woody's Auctions I learned a lesson: never bid on anything that you haven't had a decent time to inspect. Since I had brought my 1yr old daughter with me that day I was a bit distracted and unfortunately hadn't noticed that "someone" had tied an elastic tie strap around the top and fooled me into believing everything was ok with the drill press.
Once I got it home and took off the elastic, the quill dropped right down which is when I realized that the quill return spring was missing.
Anyways, after some searching online I found various ways to fix broken or missing quill springs but since I have a lathe now I figured I'd buy a $3 replacement spring on ebay and make myself a little housing on the lathe.
It was actually quite simple. I measured the spring once I got it in the mail, made the housing a bit bigger and a bit deeper, popped the spring into it but then I realized that the spring was too big for my drill press and because of that I had made the case too big for the drill press. Bummer. I ended up making the housing a bit smaller to fit on the drill press, made it a bit deeper and cut the spring in half. Once I installed the spring into the housing I bent the end to how it should be, painted the housing and installed it on the drill press. Take that woody!!!
Pictures:
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| The missing quill spring and housing |
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| Cutting off a piece of 2" cold rolled steel which ended up being too small |
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| Facing the CRS |
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| The spring from ebay |
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| The housing off of a smaller drill press |
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| Cutting off a 2.25" piece of gray cast iron (nasty, dirty stuff) for the second attempt |
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| Boring out the inside of the housing |
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| The finished housing (2nd attempt) |
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| The housing with the new spring (2nd attempt) |
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| 3rd attempt (smaller housing, 1" deep, 1.860" inside diameter, 2.25" outside diameter |
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| The finished housing with the spring installed |
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| The inside of the spring housing with the cut and bent spring |
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| Putting a quick coat of paint on it |
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| The installed housing |
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| Another view |
Angle grinder
Pliers
Metal lathe
Tin snips
Drill bits
Materials:
1" of 2.25" gray cast iron
Black spray paint
Cost:
$3.00
Time:
1hr but only because I had to do it 3 times
Savings:
I don't know, maybe $30 bucks
Conclusion:
Works great and looks alright too
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