I have a, new to me, Meddings pillar drill. At present, I do not want to bolt it to my workshop floor, as I am not yet sure of it's best position. While front to back stability appears OK, assuming that it is positioned almost up to a wall, side to side stability is not so good. I am thinking of bolting it onto two pieces of steel I Beam, each 60 cm long, 6 cm wide and 10 cm high. My reasoning is that the extra weight and width will improve stability. Has anyone done this or do you have other suggestions? Until I am certain of the final position, I am reluctant to drill holes through my floor mats into the concrete.
Floor Pillar Drill Stability
- Thread starter simonridout
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Jacob
New Luddism. Awake and resist!
I made a low and sturdy little table for mine and bolted it on. It made it much more stable and also the new working height was better. It's very heavy but easy to move about with a sack trolley.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Just get a few coach screws and screw it down to a couple of lengths of 4" x 2"., Cheaper and easier than using steel. You'd struggle to topple it deliberately.
eribaMotters
Established Member
Mine is bolted to a piece of 1" thick plywood about 24" square with 4 castors. It is mobile yet stable and works a treat.
Do bolt it to something.
My own Fobco 7-eight is heavier than the meddings with a much bigger base, but has 2 holes for feet at the front and one central at the back. That triangle isn't stable enough if you have a big piece of steel off to one side of the table.
I've done exactly what you propose and widened the footprint using steel channel.
My own Fobco 7-eight is heavier than the meddings with a much bigger base, but has 2 holes for feet at the front and one central at the back. That triangle isn't stable enough if you have a big piece of steel off to one side of the table.
I've done exactly what you propose and widened the footprint using steel channel.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
a bit like my lathe - it has the bricks from eight night storage heaters in the base.graduate_owner
Established Member
Mine is a fairly lightweight Axminster job. What I have done is bolt it to a home made mobile base - 4 castors and a square of ply about 30" square. Stable and mobile too.
K
K
Terrytpot
Established Member
Did similar with mine purely for ease of moving it around. Any concerns about lateral stability when drilling longer pieces can be alleviated by using an appropriate trestle to support the far end of them.
Castors under an industrial pillar drill would scare me sh1tless !
225kG of top heavy drill going over = a real mess.
eribaMotters
Established Member
The footprint of the drill is far smaller than the baseboard size. You should also find about 50% of the weight is in the cast iron base. My table is also a cast aluminium affair, about 1100 x 300 mm so lots of leverage potential. In the 30 years I have had this set-up I have never experienced an instability issue.
Colin
Colin
graduate_owner
Established Member
Well my arrangement is certainly stable, no hint of overbalancing, plus it means I can move the drill when I need to get to my spindle moulder which is located behind it. It doesn't feel like it is going to topple even when I am pushing it around. A big enough base is the key of course, and I think that should be determined by the weight and weight distribution of the drill.
K
K
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