Simple improvement to Pillar Drill

[Niall]

Bought a Jet 17 floor standing drill a couple of years ago and it's performed well and accurately, if noisily.

Read somewhere about those V link belts reducing vibration, so I got some when in Canada. That helped a bit. So did gaffer taping the lid down. But it was still noisy.

Today I had to move the drill to do an awkward job and noticed that the motor was mounted a few degrees off vertical, and the pulleys on the motor shaft were a little off level with the others. Doh.

So I sorted out the motor alignment and also stuck some P profile 'stormguard' around the lip of the lid.

What a difference! Night and day. Purrs quietly along now, and the loudest noise (almost) is the drill bit cutting.

 

[woodbloke]

Those are couple of useful tips...thanks. I'll be buying the bench mounted version of the Jet in the not too distant future, so I'll bear that in mind - Rob

 

[OPJ]

Very interesting. I did notice the same 'pulley alignment' issues on my previous Clarke pillar drill, which used to make a bit of a racket, even after I upgraded all the bearings above the chuck and quill. Did you manage to adjust these in the end and, if so, how? Never thought to check the motor mounting, though.

Great tip of the use of draught-proofing to seal off the hood.

 

[Niall]

Not done anything with bearings. Adjusting the motor position involved loosening four bolts, which allowed rotational and vertical adjustment. I adjusted rotation by eye, and vertical by placing a straight edge across the tops of the three sets of pulleys.

 

[jimi43]

I have done this on my old Sealey but not on my Axminster floor stander since getting it so good reminder for me.

By v link I take it you mean those belts you can extend and shorten with links?

Another great upgrade is to the table.....I must get around to making a fenced table...I made a small one for a little drill that I had and it has proven so useful but I need to get some aluminium T slot track.

One problem I had with the Axminster was forgetting to loosen the top ring allen grub screw when I rotated the table the other day and the whole ring split. Anyone had this problem before and solved it short of getting a replacement ring?

Jim