which drill press for pens

Hello William,

You do not need a drill press to drill pen blanks. If you have a jacobs type chuck for the tailstock to hold a drill bit and a set of chuck jaws that will hold the pen blank, you can drill the blanks right on the lathe. If you don't have these two chucks, you can likely buy them as inexpensively as a good drill press.

Fred Holder

I use the cheap Grizzly benchtop drillpress (G7942) to take to demo's and shows especially for pen making. Drillpresses, in my experience, is one of the things Grizzly does, relatively, right. They're not the best in the world but they're good. I use that drillpress to cut blanks to size, drill holes, and press parts together. I have no hesitation to point out what I don't like with Grizzly products nor do I have a problem recommending them on what I like either.

- Andrew

Bill,

The imported 8" drill presses seem to be the immediate answer but, in my opinion, they are not. All that I've seen are limited to roughly a 2" stroke. Most pen blanks are this size or a little larger. You can work around this by drilling as deep as the drill press will allow and then putting a piece of scrap under the blank. Of course, while putting in the piece of scrap, the drill bit must stay inside the blank. Possibly not the most safe way of working. I do it, but I'm warning you.

Another problem is the distance between the tip of the bit and the table when the table is in it's lowest position. In many cases that distance is not enough to get the blank and whatever holds the blank under the bit. I cut about 3/4" off my 8mm bit just to get around this problem.

You can also drill pen blanks on the lathe by investing in a Jacobs chuck with a Morse taper. Considerably less money and more portable. :-)

Hope this helps,

Harry

"Harry B. Pye" wrote: (clip) You can also drill pen blanks on the lathe by investing in a Jacobs chuck with a Morse taper.(clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^ A Jacobs chuck on the tailstock. with a drillbit uses up quite a bit of the length of a small lathe. An alternative is to hold the drillbit in a Morse taper collet. You will need a different collet for each drill size. Advantages: 1.) Less expensive than a chuck 2.) Store in almost no space

I have had problems with this too, particularly when turning 'bic' insert pens and sought advice on this group and elsewhere. Using bits of advice from a number of sources, I have found the easiest way for me:-

Firstly make sure that the two centres are lined up correctly.

Have your Jacobs chuck in the tailstock end and in it put a short (3" or so) non flexy 4mm brad point bit. Holding the blank in a suitable chuck at the headstock end, I use a speed of no more than 500-600rpm. I bring the tailstock up to the end of the blank and lock the tailstock. I then slowly wind the tailstock into the blank going no more than 3/4" and letting the drill bit do the work without forcing it. I withdraw the bit and clean the rubbish off and then push the tailstock up to the last drilled point and start winding again. Moving in 3/4" steps I go as far as this drill bit will go and then change it for an 8" drill bit. The trouble with these is that if you force it or turn at too high a speed, the hole will go off centre, so again it is back to the slow 3/4" movements until you have the length of hole required.

This takes time and would be no good for a production line but if you were running one of those, you would have professional drills. At least the method seems to work and since doing it this way, I haven't lost any with unwanted air holes.

Paul

One of the things that has kept me from buying a benchtop drill press is the small travel.

My lathe is a Nova DVR so there should be plenty of room for the jacobs chuck to work

Harry B. Pye wrote:

Rather than have the mountain come to Mohamed, drill as deeply as possible with the throw your drill has. If you are a little short of drilling completely through the blank, simply loosen the chuck and, providing that you initially had the drill bit inserted as far as it would go into the chuck, lower the drill shaft a half-inch or so in the chuck, retighten and continue to drill through the blank. This works best if you have a jig to hold the blank on the drill press table. I don't remember if I posted my home-made jig on this forum but - here it is

Cheers, Tom