Thread: planing bit for a drill press

My first reaction was that this was the sort of crazy idea that I have. The bearings and engineering design of drill presses, especially the less expensive ones, are not really designed to resist sideways pressure as in moving an object against a router bit .....

But I routinely use a drum sander device in a drill press for small and light jobs. Works well. And their are disk sander attachments, as well.

Why not a router bit? A bit of googling came up with this:
StewMac Safe-T-Planer | stewmac.com
Never use one, never seen one, no opinion on how well it works, but the T-planer may have a specialist use. There are also other brands.

I would be very wary of the safety issues as, in some ways, this replicates the spindle molder, the most dangerous tool in the workshop.

Drill presses are not really intended to handle side loads and I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that you want a bit with a reasonable cutting surface, and intend to move the work on the table or sub table to plane off the excess material while maintaining a fixed bit height for each pass. This will definitely induce side loads in the drill spindle, and if it is fitted with a Morse Taper spindle, it may cause the machine to eject the chuck, arbour and bit while cutting. This, in turn, will most likely damage the item you are trimming beyond repair as the bit will gouge into the work and chuck and arbour will ding it badly if they are fully released from the spindle. There is also a danger of hand injury if you happen to be near the bit when it the arbour unlocks.

Personally, I would resort to a hand plane or similar to finish the job, given that you have gone as far as you dare using a forstner bit. Again a forstener bit is also not intended for what you have been doing, and is intended to cut into the surface, not across it. I can'think of any router bit that will work effectively at moderate drill press speeds, they generally operate at much higher rpm and rely on removing minute amounts every revolution.

Here is a review of one Paul and a video. They have been around for years but I don't know of anyone who has one.
I would have thought that if you secured your workpiece down to the table of your drill press and swung the table from side to side taking small depths of cut you should end up with what you want without any danger. This advice assumes you have some sort of stop on the column of your drill so you can leave the table support arm unlocked and be able to swing it.

It's not just the bearings, it's the fact that "morse tapers" are commonly used to hold chucks on most drill presses. They are OK on things like a sanding drum which is usually a smooth operation but on planing bits there is so much chatter that the vibe will continually vibrate the chuck loose out of its morse taper. This is not a pretty thing at any sort of speed and, as well as potentially ruining a workpiece, it will damage the morse taper so the chuck may eventually never stay in place.

Morse tapers can be used provided then use a "draw bAR", which is a large bolt that comes in from the top and through the spindle and goes into a threaded section on the top of the morse taper. The sorts of machines that use this set up are metal milling machines or even some drill mills. The machines also have the bearings needed to handle the heavy sideways loss induce by (especially metal) milling.

If you want to mill a piece of timber flat it's much safer and better/ to use a router mill setup.

I think the hardest part is going to be keeping everything rigid during the cutting.

Just buy a cheap router bit or end mill. Then shallow cuts, itll take a while but should get it done.

Your drill wont explode from it. It wont even damage it.

Trying to take a 10mm cut in steel might be a different story. Some light cuts in wood will ve fine

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

My first reaction was that this was the sort of crazy idea that I have. The bearings and engineering design of drill presses, especially the less expensive ones, are not really designed to resist sideways pressure as in moving an object against a router bit .....

I had a drill press that when side pressure was applied, the chuck on a Morse Taper would be thrown across the shop. It only did that once.

I DID buy one of those things; from McJings many, many years ago. Only used it once I think; as soon after I bought a 6" jointer.

The lateral loading is actually quite light. The sides act as limiters so each cutter is only taking a thin shaving; you can press as hard as you like but it simply won't feed through any faster. However the surface finish is not particularly good and still requires hand planing or heavy sanding to remove the cutter swirl marks.

What did annoy me about it was that the cutters didn't have an indexing position and as purchased they weren't fastened down tight enough. Two of them rotated out reducing their depth of cut further; this was picked up by the feed rate slowing right down and a bit of noticeable vibration felt through the wood. Getting the three cutters projecting the same amount is fiddly and needs a home-made spacer.

Unless you can put a locking collar on your drill press column I wouldn't bother trying to use it in a swinging motion. I clamped a fence to the table and fed the workpiece in against it. Oh; and DEFINITELY run your timber through on one previously flattened side; planed, sawn or adzed it doesn't matter but if you try to run through a wobbly or curved bit it will simply follow the same shape with added gouges.

Well gents, thanks for all your comments. There seems to be one common point here, dont use your drill press as a router. This probably explains why with my last drill press, the chuck kept falling out of the morse taper because I was using a router bit in it to clean out pickup and neck sockets in a guitar. I do recall now seeing those planers from Stew Mac, looking at the price of them I'd be up for maybe 100 or more dollars with postage. What I have done so far is use a forstner bit in my drill press, one cut at a time, trying to clean out as much as I can. Then I tried a chisel but that was putting too much pressure on the 4mm base. Then I tried a cabinet scraper, but that was pretty hard yakka. I have a set of (not sure what they are called), cone shaped discs (3 sizes) with rubber on the bottom with velcro on the rubber. To attach a circular piece of velcro sandpaper. This might be my only solution, but the sandpaper does fall off a lot probably due to the friction heat.

I want to try and salvage this box, there is actually two of them, because I used some lovely Tassie Blackheart Sassafras.

Not sure if an overhead router setup would suffice, as in the box section, I dont think I would get the bit lower enough, plus I would have to make an overhead router frame to suit.

Thanks for your suggestions, gives me something to think about. I just thought there may have been some sort of a boring tool out there I wasnt aware of.

Paul

To clean out glue, I'd suggest three tools for the job: a sharp pairing chisel for the excess adhesive on vertical surfaces and a hand router iron for the difficult to get to horizontal surfaces. You can also use a Dremel with a small router bit (you can also get the extension snake if you want), but I don't think you will need it.

It's difficult to advise without a picture of exactly what you're faced with. I'm assuming that you can't use a plane because the base on the box and tray are inset in the sides? If my understanding of the problem is correct you should be able to remove the unwanted stock using the router table. Set up stops on the fence and using a suitable mortising bit take a pass; keep moving the fence back until you've completed the entire base. Probably best to try a very light pass first just to check for potential problems. Strong dust extraction below the table would be a huge help. Once you've got down to the base you can pare away any remaining material around the edge with a sharp chisel.

Worst thing about this method is that you can't see what's going on, but have faith.

Just use the router.

Originally Posted by aldav

It's difficult to advise without a picture of exactly what you're faced with. ........

Hi Gents, Yes I agree, it was difficult to see what I was talking about without pics. I dug up the original pics I took of the box and tray in question. These 2 pics will give you an idea of what I was talking about. I want to remove the pen holders from the tray and the box. I want to turn this box into a normal jewellery box with ring holders in the tray etc.

Why did I build this in the first place????, is a good question. A chap bought a very expensive jewellery box from me just before Christmas for his wife. He then come back and asked, could I build him a box to hold his 25 pens. That he collects. Naturally I said I'll try. He gave me some ideas and I went about and made up a test tray, but he wasnt happy with that. He come back with a photo of a box that he found on a site somewhere and wanted something similar. Numerous emails back and forth as he kept changing his mind I ended up saying I will make this box the way I think I can, if your happy with that, good, otherwise I'll just put it onto my site. To make those pen holders was a lot of mucking about as I made an overhead router system to cut all those grooves in them. I ended up thinking if I am going to this much trouble I'll make 3 of these boxes. In the process I used a lot of my lovely Tassie Blackheart Sassafras which I was regretting as I was making all these. One I made with a glass top, the other two are similar to the pics I just put up.

Needless to say I never heard from him again, never bothered to get back to me at all,...!!!!!!

The one with the glass lid sold recently. So I thought I am going to convert these other two to normal boxes. After much pondering and reading your replies I am cleaning the pen holders out with a forstner bit as deep as I can. I'll then do a bit of chiselling and then finish with this cone shaped tool that fits into my drill press. It spans out with rubber and then has a velcro bottom on it (circular). Then I am cutting out a piece of 80 grit velcro sandpaper and trying to clean it up with that. I am not worried about scuff marks as it will be covered with a lovely velvet bottom anyway.

Thanks for all your thoughts and I apologise for not putting up pics initially.

Paul

Suddenly it makes sense. I was imagining these pesky bits of wood on the outside of the base of the box and the tray.