Center drill holder lathe/drillpress project

[Henning]

I recently saw one like this posted on another forum i'm a member of and thought i'd make one as well... During the weekend i was using the metal lathe anyway for another project, so got it done. Center drill holder:

I added a magnet in the bottom just glued in with Cyanoacrylate to be able to leave it on the lathe or drillpress without pushing it off:

And here's the spot drill and center drills in their place:

Took me a couple of hours, but very happy with it :mrgreen: Now i'll have the correct center drill available and easily accessible all times.

 

[AES]

Very nice, thanks. Looks a good design and good work too.

AES

 

[dickm]

MUCH better than the lump of beech that sits on the end of the Super 7 tray and (usually) has my centre drills returned to it

 

[porker]

Looks great. What material did you use? How did you mark out the centres? I don't have any dividing equipment but I divide by 3 using the 3 jaw chuck by using a bolt on the ways between the bed and the sides of the jaws.

 

[Henning]

Material is a scrap of 50mm. aluminium (or close to, not entirely sure. Between 45 and 55 somewhere originaly).
I marked it out with a pair of dividers by eye, and then just center punched and drilled in the drill press
Quick and dirty one might say...

All credit goes to a person on another forum which shared his! I added the magnet to avoid having to sweep my floor with a magnet looking for them when i tipped it over.

 

[Mister Griffiths]

I do like the idea of the magnet...I'm just setting my lathe up in the new workshop today, I may make one myself!

 

[jasonB]

Can I just ask do you actually find a need for all those size ctr drills? I do a fair bit of metal work and generally a BS 1 & BS2 ctr drill is all I use with a very occasional BS3 on something large.

I should add that I use spotting drills for starting holes that will be drilled, even then just 1/8" & 3/16" do me.

J

 

[AES]

@ Jacob:

Henning may well be in the same position as I was starting out, i.e. not knowing any better, I just bought a set (I think of 5), out of which (of course!) I use only 2 regularly.

Same idea as taps & dies, drills, etc - I've learnt that it's better to buy sizes as you need them rather than complete sets (assuming of course that one is already equipped with a basic set of Metric or Imperial, as one's decided).

Krgds
AES

 

[Henning]

Can I just ask do you actually find a need for all those size ctr drills? I do a fair bit of metal work and generally a BS 1 & BS2 ctr drill is all I use with a very occasional BS3 on something large.

I should add that I use spotting drills for starting holes that will be drilled, even then just 1/8" & 3/16" do me.

J

I have actually used all of them, but mostly the two midle ones. I do a lot of very different things, though, so it's good having them all.
Plus, of course, i'm "slightly" more than normally interested in tools.