The Cole Drill gloat

When I looked for information about the Cole Drill a number of years ago, I saw the Guy Lautard site description, and he was selling them at the time (by special order, I guess). I don't recall seeing it for sale elsewhere, but it could've been.

He doesn't have them on his website now, this is a page that Glenn found in the Wayback Machine webarchive.org:

I'm not sure what your question means, but the spindle doesn't just thread down into the workpiece as the crank is turned. Instead, there is a separate threaded section referred to as the Pressure Screw (a hollow part around the spindle topped with a hex head) that the user can turn at will for down feed pressure, as the crank is being turned. The Pressure Screw imparts the down feed pressure to the spindle thru a thrust bearing (according to a description from Lautard's old webpage).

For drilling deep holes, since the pressure screw will reach the limit of it's descending travel, the user would need to stop drilling, back out the pressure screw, lower the upper section to a lower position on the column, then resume feeding and drilling again.

In the Cole Drill brochure (listed as Cole Drill Instructions on the Rusty Iron site

Damn..Ive never seen one before. Now Im going to start looking for one. Seems like I could do a bunch of things with it.

Or build one from scratch with an electric drill in it.

Gunner

"Lenin called them "useful idiots," those people living in liberal democracies who by giving moral and material support to a totalitarian ideology in effect were braiding the rope that would hang them. Why people who enjoyed freedom and prosperity worked passionately to destroy both is a fascinating question, one still with us today. Now the useful idiots can be found in the chorus of appeasement, reflexive anti-Americanism, and sentimental idealism trying to inhibit the necessary responses to another freedom-hating ideology, radical Islam"

Bruce C. Thornton, a professor of Classics at American University of Cal State Fresno

. I bought a Cole drill 15-20 years ago and I drilled

In my spare time I have been working on mounting a Lindsay L248 loader on my 1555 Oliver tractor and found I needed to drill six 13/16" holes in the mounting brackets. These brackets are oddly shaped and weight 150 lbs or more. Kind of a bugger to get in my drill press. I went out to look for my Cole drill in the storage shed and there it was waiting patiently for my return after 23 years if I remember correctly. I bought it used at a farm auction in the 80s and it seems to have lived a rough life as there is hardly any green paint left on it and quite a bit of play between the casting and feed screw. I drilled the pilot holes with my Dewalt but I knew that it would start smoking if I attempted to drill the 13/16" holes in the 3/8" plate the bracket is constructed from. I took about four minutes a hole to drill the holes with the Cole number 7 and after this job I will probably hang it up in the shop where it should have been all this time. Steve

I'm already thinking about making one... If I'm going to have a machine shop in rural Oz in a couple years, I think it would come in right handy.

Has anyone had one apart, and can shed some light on the thrust bearing? Looking at the casting, it would appear the end of the thrust screw just bears on a shoulder on the spindle. I don't see enough room in there for any sort of rolling element bearing. Or maybe just a hardened washer between the two surfaces?

Jon

I may receive the Cole Drill this week, and of course, taking it apart will be the first thing I'll do, just because that's what I do.

I'll report here about the thrust bearing and other parts, and possibly post some pichers 'n stuff at the kwagmire metalworking projects site.

I've seen thrust bearings that are a single row of small balls arranged in a circle, which don't require much area, although the Cole literature states that the pressure screw can exert as much as 1000 lbs pressure, so I don't know how well small balls would work. Then again, all thrust bearings don't have rolling parts, as you suggested.

Oilite bronze works nicely (IME) for low speed applications.

That's a great followup story of your Cole Drill, Steve.

A great example of how a simple, durable tool is obsolete-proof.

While the Cole Drill isn't the fastest method, with a certain amount of arm power, it's still just as practical a tool today as it was 50 or more years ago.

webarchive.org:http://web.archive.org/web/20040216050451/lautard.com/cole.htm On that page he mentions the electric drill adapter, and that they were simple to make. I'm assuming it replaces the handle somehow. Does anone here have one to measure/take pictures of, or can describe how it attaches...? It really does sound like a usefull addition, especially since I have a 1/2" drill that I feel I can never quite get enough down pressure when drilling bigger holes.

I suppose worse comes to worst, I could just disassemble mine and make up something. --Glenn Lyford

webarchive.org:http://web.archive.org/web/20040216050451/lautard.com/cole.htm>

When we bought this house 25 years ago, there was no dryer vent installed. I proceeded to chain drill (22 holes) a 4+" hole through the 10" poured foundation using a 3/8" hammer drill (Skil extra tool). In order to get a little extra pressure for the larger bits, I used perforated hanger strap, a 2x2 with a nail in the end to engage the strap holes, and a screw point about 2" from the end to press on a dimple on the drill motor in line with the spindle. I did manage to keep all the magic smoke in the drill motor, but just barely. Core drills were expensive to rent at that time. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Sometime in the 50's I watched some millwrights drilling very large holes in a steel motor support plate. They had an electric drill with a feed screw out the back. They welded a frame from the plate up and across the back of the drill. They turned the screw out with a handwheel to bear against the frame and apply pressure to the drill. Seemed to work well but has probably been obsoleted by the mag-base drill.

Don Young

Yeah, I overheated mine once and melted the plastic fan to the gearcase, but was able to revive it again later. I would think the advantage to using a drillmotor to drive a Cole drill is all that downfeed pressure isn't going through the motor and gearcase bearings...might make the heat a little more manegable. --Glenn Lyford

On Tue, 19 May 2009 20:58:27 -0400, the infamous Gerald Miller scrawled the following:

webarchive.org:http://web.archive.org/web/20040216050451/lautard.com/cole.htm>>

Condolences. I would have set my phaser to maximum and bored a clean hole through it in seconds.

-- No matter how cynical you are, it is impossible to keep up. --Lily Tomlin

I received the Cole Drill yesterday. There is a ball bearing thrust washer between the Pressure Screw and the Spindle, allowing the pressure screw to apply downward pressure to the spindle with very little friction.

Inside the casting cavity area, the spindle shaft diameter is reduced, creating a shoulder for the thrust washer to bear against. The pressure screw section is slightly larger in diameter than the larger O.D. section of the spindle, with an axial center hole for the reduced diameter of the spindle to pass thru.

I saw the reference to the drill adapter, but I don't know exactly what the plans would have shown for making the adapter.

It could have just been a section of round stock drilled axially and tapped to match the thread at the top of the spindle (at one end), and a stem with

When I unscrew the handle and ratchet from the top, that leaves an exposed threaded stem (which is the top end of the spindle), where the ratchet threads on and stops against a shoulder.

So, one could make a drill adapter with a threaded hole to adapt to the thread, or an adapter to engage the ratchet (threaded back on after removing the handle).

Let us know how it turns out, Jon. I'm certain that others would be interested to know, too.

My Cole must be an older version as it has a 3/8" thick washer as a thrust bearing. Steve

Thanks for that feedback and description! I'm surely going to start designing my own version.

Jon

Will do. Might finally have something worth adding to the DropBox....

Jon