Since I always try to get my kids some tools they can use for their own projects and they already have a mitre saw (and Ulmia 352 I bought for 5€ because neither me nor the guy selling it knew the worth. It weights a few kgs because the table is cast iron planed flat. It’s an awesome saw and I used it at my dad’s place for some baseboards for example), I bought a mechanical drill press. I more or less stumbled over it in a German forum where we post interesting things to buy (mostly on Kleinanzeigen (is it called “classifieds” in English?). The guy who’d posted it said he lived one village over and could get it and send it. So I asked the seller if she’d do that and she was fine with it. I paid 35€ for it (a steal, if you ask me) plus 25€ postage. It weights close to 20kgs and is from 1960 or so.
Now lets have some pictures:
Metabo (Western Germany):
How does it work? Glad you asked. In the next two pictures you can see the internal gears. You can switch between fast and slow by pulling out the handle, changing the gears. Simple but really effective. The most interesting thing is the disc on top. If you crank the handle and it touches wood, the tip gets pressed up a little, creating friction between the rod in the middle and the disc on top so the disc starts to turn as well, creating momentum so that you can actually even drill iron with it pretty well. The know on the top left works as a “brake” for the disc. You can completely lock it, then the drill goes down a lot more quickly but does not have too much power. Good for styrofoam maybe. The more you undo the know, a little spring releases the pressure and it starts turning with the crank earlier. Such an incredibly awesome design.
It’s also actually more stable than the drill press I have from Proxxon with a normal drill inside… Ugh…
I am now going to print a vise for it so the kids can fix the workpieces there. 