suggested clausing drill press parts suppliers?

Someone who knows what they're doing can probably get the spindle back to within a couple thousandths runout. Using a press, not a hammer. Probably not as good as a new spindle, but good enough for most purposes for a drill press.

Depending on experience and available equipment it might take from 15 minutes to an hour. Look at videos of straightening presses on Youtube and you'll see cobbled together rigs and fully automated machines, and everything in between.

My current project is designing & building a 250 ton straightening press.

This sounds like a bad idea, but I just have to ask-

lock the quill down, slip some pipe over the spindle with the chuck removed and tap the other end of the pipe with a mallet.

Whatever force that bent the thing in the first place didn't seem to destroy the bearings. It's not clear if the metal used will just break off, or bend into an even stranger shape.

This particular drill press is in nice shape otherwise, and easy to transport due to the location. The owner is aware of the problem it has, but obviously can't sell it for negative amounts of money if that's what it costs to repair to get back into working order.

What size things can that bend back into shape?

Not for a Clausing ... Just scrapped a two headed Delta drill... one head was MISSING a spindle!

There wasn't really a good way to tell when I took a look. I brought an indicator and stand to check for just this, and yeah, it was off. The runout just under the lower bearing is about 0.0015, so fine for all intents and purposes. At the bottom of the spindle, it's about 0.040 which is fairly visible. It's a variable speed unit, so I wasn't able to remove the belt to see how the thing felt when turning by hand.

Been reading this all day, nothing really too useful though if one lacks a press. Somebody had luck swinging a hammer at theirs, but that sounds like a good way to botch up a bearing or break something else. It would have to be taken apart to see where the bend is, my guess though is it's below the quill, outside the space between the bearings. The upper splined part of the spindle doesn't stick out anywhere, so bending the section between the bearings seems like it would be really hard to do. The cheater bar trick sounds somewhat tempting, but if the thing snaps off, it's a total loss, no matter what the discount on the machine was.

There's tons of these things parted out on ebay, but no spindles, and especially no morse 2 versions. Boo.

The problem with that approach is the difficulty in delivering calibrated, repeatable blows. This is a pretty good video of a homebrew straightening rig and the use of indicators to find the bend and to gage the deflection required to work the bend out. It's a pull-down device instead of a press, but the process is the same.

The chances of the spindle breaking are very small unless it's been severely damaged.

It's intended for alloy steels up to 8" in diameter. Theoretically, it'll yield mild steel rounds up to about 12" dia.

Send it out and get it professionally straightened, unless it's scrap to begin with.

Bad idea!

yes.

Who does this, and how much might this run?

It is also possible to straighten it using a torch a couple dial indicators and V blocks.

If this was just a plain shaft, I'd jump right in, but the issue is there exposed part of the spindle is about 1" wide and maybe 4" long. The top necks down and a the lower bearing for the quill is pressed on. Everything above that point is maybe 1/2" in diameter or so, and then splined at top for the magic variable speed pulley.

If the bend is from somebody banging into the exposed part of the spindle, it's likely to be bent where it drops in diameter to somewhere around 1/2" where the bearing is.

This would be a sharp bend at the weakest part on the entire part. "Unbending" that part has to be done in a very narrow spot, and not further down the skinny part, inside or between the bearings mounted in the quill itself, at least as I see it. How tough is it to straighten this out without adding other weird off-center type issues?

here's some bad ASCII art. B shows where the bearings press on. Q is the quill itself.

// QQQQQQQQQQ\\QQQQQQQQQ BBB // BBB-------------------------| ----------BBB-------\\------BBB | -------- BBB // BBB ======= (drift slot) | < bit or ----------BBB-------\\------BBB | chuck | BBB // BBB-------------------------| goes here | QQQQQQQQQQ\\QQQQQQQQQ | // ^^ | | spline possible bend ------ for pulley

Have you put it between centers and mapped the eccentricity yet?

nope. I don't own the thing, trying to see if it's worth a shot to repair or get parts for.