Does your drill press run too fast to use a hole saw on metal? How about a ¾” drill bit through steel plate? Are you sick of burning up expensive cutting tools? Look no further, you have found the solution. Now you can turn a used $150 drill press into a serious cutting machine!
This bolt on kit cuts the RPM of your drill press and increase torque. Typically referred to as a “jackshaft”, these are commonly home made with plywood and hardware store parts. This is a much easier and safer alternative, and will likely cost you less money than building your own. Made with high quality greasable ball bearings in cast pillow blocks with a laser cut and CNC formed steel mount, this tool is designed to last as long as your drill press when properly cared for. Requires trimming your belt guard if equipped. kits reuse one of your factory belts (or an additional belt will be required). Comes with new motor mounting hardware. Made in the USA*.
NEMA 56 3L 1:2 – 3L (3/8”) belts, 1/2 the RPM, 2x torque. $119 shipped (US)
NEMA 56 3L 1:2 – A (1/2”) belts, 1/2 the RPM, 2x torque. $119 shipped (US)
NEMA 56 3L 1:4 – A (1/2”) belts, 1/4 the RPM, 4x torque. $139 shipped (US).
What is a NEMA 56? These kits work only with motors that mount with a 3" x 4 7/8" bolt pattern and have a 5/8" shaft, part of the definition of a NEMA 56 motor. Most drill presses have these motors. Call/PM us if you think you have something else.
We said a "used $150 drill press"... We mean any drill press you find used on craigslist.
As for new ones:
The 1/2 HP 12 speed bench top ones from harbor freight for $129 work, So do the large ones up to the $600 big boys.
At home depot the $575 Ridgid floor drill press can have our kit bolted right to it as well.
About 90% of drill presses that aren't antique or TINY (like 1/4HP) will have a NEMA 56 motor and 3L or A belts, and therefore will work with this kit without modification.
You can bolt our kit on, and put a 3L pulley on your motor, a 3L pulley on the reduction shaft, and your factory cone pulley on top of that. You will have a 3L belt going from your motor to the reduction kit, and then your 2L belt going from the reduction kit to your spindle pulley. Should work without any modification or extra parts!
We have looked at a number of JET and Grizzly drill presses. The kit works on all the ones we have found. If you aren't sure, PM us a picture of the motorplate, belts, and the press. We can help you figure it out.
We have been getting a lot of PMs on this kit. If your motor has a 3"x5" mounting pattern and a 5/8" shaft, this kit will work. It is best if you have the same size belts on your drill press and reduction kit, but that really isn't required. Just makes it possible to swap belts around if you ever want to. You can run a 1/2" belt on the reduction kit and 1/8" belts on your drill press without any issues.
We have the parts on order for the 1:4 kits, and we got the price improved considerably! $139 shipped in the US!
And you can double these kits up, mounting one off each side. We have longer hardware and we will be carrying longer belts too. Now with one kit you can go down to 1:2 or 1:4, and with 2 kits you can crawl a 3" hole saw or a mill cutter at 1:8 or 1:16!
Even if your drill press will only slow down to 600 RPM from the factory, you can rip it up at 37.5 RPM without any load on the spindle!
Here is an image out of our CAD system with the 1:4 (8") pulley installed on factory 12 speed benchtop drill press.
We have had a few people ask us if this kit works with 2 pulley drill presses... It sure does!
2 pulley drill presses are common, and the factory belt should fit just fine. If the pulleys are between 10 and 20 inches apart, you can set up this kit with less than a 1" difference between the original OEM belt path and the new belt path to the reduction kit. Your factory tension adjustment should accomodate the small difference in pulley spacing. If it doesn't, you will have to go buy a $6 belt.
Here is a rendering of an 8" pulley, good for a 1:4 reduction on your drill press.
We're glad you asked. The reduction pulley should be on the opposite side of the the spindle feed if you are on a 2 pulley drill press and it gets close to the feed. You can flip the cover and keep the minimal trimming required, or just trim it more to allow the belts to fit through the hinge side.
It is Cyber Monday! We are offering free shipping on all orders over $1000 and $25 off shipping on all other orders over $100. Discount is given as a refund after purchase. Kick off the online shopping season with new tools from Rogue Fabrication! Continental 48 US states only.
Wouldn't you be able to run the belt from the added motor to the original existing motor as a idler pulley? obviously only one motor could run at a time using the original motor pulley as the idler when only using the added motor to reduce the end drill speed.
That is a cool idea! You could totally add a motor instead of an idler and use one as a "idler motor" while the other is running. The are slight maintenance drawbacks, and you would have to drill a motor bolt pattern into the adapter plate. But then you could have a 2 speed drill press via switches, and of course many more speeds via the belts.
This big Rockwell drill press (equipped with a RogueFab Reduction Kit) is used by Spiral X LLC, in Garland, Texas. Spiral X makes industry leading high performance air coolers, and drills thousands of large diameter holes in stainless steel every month. Brian (the owner) said: "The drill press reduction kit is working fantastic. I don't know how you would drill into stainless steel in production without it. We were able to pull in the drilling we used to outsource (although we are a little slow). For instance, on a piece I was paying $50.00 for, we are doing the drilling in 1 hour with a jig internally, saving jobs and of course money!"
Here is a good resolution photo of just the reduction kit. 1:4 shown, although we just got in some slightly smaller pulleys and got it stretched down to almost 5:1!
We offer custom solutions on these kits too. If you have an interesting set up that doesn't look like a regular drill press, chances are good that we can find a way to slow it down with out kit still! :smokin:
Can you give an example of what rpm we might be looking for? For example, I drill holes with diameters between 1/8" and 1/2" in mild steel varying from 1/4" to 3/4" thick. I run my drill press (an old Craftsman) at its slowest speed (500 rpm) with cutting oil. I get curled pieces of metal during the drilling, but have to really watch my feed rate to avoid dulling my bits.
What would slowing my drill down gain me?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
From doing a little searching, it looks like first-guess drill speeds for 1/2" hole in mild steel is about 750 rpm, and about 400 rpm for high carbon steel or tool steel. So, having no information to the contrary, it doesn't sound like there is a real advantage to slowing down my drill press.
Per the table in my 27th edition Machinery's Handbook- Cutting speed for drilling into mild steel with a brinell hardness around 125 (middle of the road in the table) is 90 FPM (feet per minute). This is 688 RPM with a 1/2" bit. If you use the recommended feed of .010" per rev, that will cut through an inch of steel in 9 seconds. If you cut at a different rate, you will have shorter tool life or risk breakage.
If you want to find out if you are feeding at the correct rate, time yourself drilling through some material and let me know the thickness and time. The machinery's handbook is optimized for machines that don't have limiting factors like belt slippage and variability in user-applied spindle force. You may not be able to put enough pressure on the bit to cut this fast without risking breakage of the bit or slipping belts. If that is the case, you would benefit from being able to drill slower.
At 500 RPM and the .010"/rev feed, you would be able to drill through a .25" piece of steel in 3 seconds. Any slower than that and you are putting more heat into the bit than necessary while drilling, and you will get fewer holes out of the bit.
I am trying to show this "by the book" but the speeds are recommended are for automated machining where you a have a 5HP spindle on power feed with coolant and lube...
Hopefully this gets us started. Let me know your time to drill through a chunk O steel.
EDIT: FWIW, when I drill 1/2" holes in 1018 HR tube that are pre drilled to 3/16, I cut at about 125 RPM and feel that it is just right. I am using a 1/2 HP drill press with belts.
Here is another way to check your depth of feed per rev. This is a 1/2" cheapie HSS drill bit going through 1020 HREW tube, .120 thick. This might be a tiny bit heavy on the feed, but I use this speed to ream 5/8" diamter holes 3" deep too, and I don't like changing speeds. Cut was made at 125 no-load RPM.
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