Thread: Waldown drill press

Excellent find!

Even if you need to replace the motor, you are well ahead!

Good work Camo.
Brobo have a manual for the 3M on their website; appears very similar.
Very nice unit at an excellent price.
I have a very early 4 speed bench top version.
Cheers
Tony

Hi all,

Well today I picked up the drill press and on first examination it appears to be in great condition. No bearing noise, or noticeable slop in the spindle, table has a few half holes, but nothing compared to other drill presses I have seen in the past. It is missing 2 handles and some of the other handles are missing the plastic knobs, but apart from that everything else seems to be intact. Looks like the magnetic switch and obviously the foot pedal is a later addition.


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The drill press has 9 speeds from 150-3000rpm (you can see the original colour on the inside cover).


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The motor is a 1hp 3 phase made by Mccoll Electic Works Ltd Melbourne Australia, and the Magnetic Starter is a Compton Parkinson

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Looking through the green I could see a sparkle of brass on the height adjuster handle, so I had to remove the paint to look.

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It is a Waldown Type 2M (none of the pictures on Grays had the other side of the press, to see the cast imprint). Still curious about the estimated date of manufacture (it's going to be more of a work horse for me than anything else, but I am always curious to find out the age of things), I was hoping the motor would have a date on it, but no.

I don't know a lot about drill presses, so would anyone have any suggestions of things to check, before putting it into service?

Thanks,

Camoz

Popped over from metal work.
With the speed range that drill press is more likely intended for metal and a few of us have them (or similar) so asking questions there is not an issue.
Looking at the pics it seems to be pretty much intact. There are 2 handles missing but they should not be hard to replace. Brobo still stock parts for most of their equipment so if you need parts and can't make them yourself they are a good place to start. The colour is a typical 'what have we got in a tin' dulux refurbishment. The original colour would have been a dark-ish blue.
The foot pedal and contactor are an add on, probably at the request of a safety person at the company who owned it. Personally I'd be removing that as it takes up space and (I think) is not really necessary - but I'm not you. One conversion that the guys do for 3 phase stuff is put a VFD - this will change it so it can run on single phase but also provide some further variation on speed (if you need that).
Age - up to 50 years I'd guess. My Waldown has a fibreglass belt guard and is not recent. Very roughly, I'd suggest F/G came in somewhere in the 80's/ 90's. If the handle is brass that would probably push it to the earlier end of the range.

Michael

Originally Posted by Michael G

Popped over from metal work.
With the speed range that drill press is more likely intended for metal and a few of us have them (or similar) so asking questions there is not an issue.
Looking at the pics it seems to be pretty much intact. There are 2 handles missing but they should not be hard to replace. Brobo still stock parts for most of their equipment so if you need parts and can't make them yourself they are a good place to start. The colour is a typical 'what have we got in a tin' dulux refurbishment. The original colour would have been a dark-ish blue.
The foot pedal and contactor are an add on, probably at the request of a safety person at the company who owned it. Personally I'd be removing that as it takes up space and (I think) is not really necessary - but I'm not you. One conversion that the guys do for 3 phase stuff is put a VFD - this will change it so it can run on single phase but also provide some further variation on speed (if you need that).
Age - up to 50 years I'd guess. My Waldown has a fibreglass belt guard and is not recent. Very roughly, I'd suggest F/G came in somewhere in the 80's/ 90's. If the handle is brass that would probably push it to the earlier end of the range.

Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for popping over to this side, having searched for Waldown in the forums and seeing fairly much ever post showing up in the Metalwork forum, it seems logical I should probably start a thread over in that forum, bit silly to go fishing and try and get you guys to all jump over to reply for me & technically this will be my metalwork press, although I think it will be the most underworked on the forum. I do like metalwork, but I am not very good at it, every time I release the clamps after 24 hours, for some reason the glue doesn't hold, and the joints fails.

i am not sure how much love I will give this machine before it starts work, but it will not stay green (the more I have seen it, the less I like it, personal taste I suppose), so I am going to probably need help with the dismantle process. I think the original colour is still on the undersides of the pulley guards (which is as you described), so should be able to get it matched.

I might post the progress over on the metalwork side & then when I am finished add some final photos to this thread.

cheers,

Camo

Hi Camo,
The drill press looks great and I am sure you will get good service out of it.
Regards Rod.

What luxury hehe, a drill for wood and one for metal, I think Neil (dai sensei) has one of these inherited from his dad, from what I have seen a good sturdy well built machine , cheers ~ John

Originally Posted by gawdelpus

What luxury hehe, a drill for wood and one for metal, I think Neil (dai sensei) has one of these inherited from his dad, from what I have seen a good sturdy well built machine , cheers ~ John

My wife is of the understanding that everyone has two