February/March 2000 of Machinist's Workshop has an article, page 15, of a small cheapo import drill press being bolted onto the cross slide of a lathe. A new column is made for the drill press that does away with the drill table and adapts the drill press head to the cross slide table by means of a pipe flange. A hole drilled through to top of the drill press which allows it to move up and down the column.
Well, it struck me as a great idea, but badly executed. Wouldn't it be better to spend a little more money and get a mini-mill for this project? You can't put sugar on dog crap and call it candy. I hate investing time into something that starts half-assed... so.. help me figure out a better way because I would like to take my lathe and properly add an overhead drilling capacity much like a combo machine.
So as far as actually having it ON the cross slide, isn't weight an issue here? can the cross slide of a lathe stand up to a drill press mounted to it? 50 to 70 pounds minimum I figure.
And what about the pressure? since the drilling table is gone, the force of the drilling is not pushing into the drill press frame anymore. it would just lift the cross feed table UP.
Is this why the only commercially make combo machines have the mill mounted to the FRAME? am I right or wrong?
What I wish I had was a mill that could move along x and y axis around the lathe jaw. Grizzly has a mini lathe with an actual milling attachment which is just the mini-mill with a special clamp at the radial pivot joint where it normally connects to its cross slide table, it just instead clamps to the back of the lathe bed. This only gives you up and down. I don't want to use my lathes cross slides as the milling table, I want to mill things while they are in the lathe jaw.
I need your constructive criticism.
Thanks,
- Loren