Since you haven't thrown the drill press away yet, why not take it on as
a challenge? Tram it in like a vertical mill. If it doesn't, take action.
I know that you won't do that again anyway, since you already owned
up to it here. Since you already had it in the lathe, that would be
the best place to drill the hole. I assume by saying "too small", you
mean "too short"?

One of the worst things that happens to me since the kids grew up and
left home many years ago is that when something goes wrong in the shop,
or if something is lost, I have no one to blame it on but me! Pretty
tough to take sometimes.

Actually, your post is a good wake up call for me, as I have never
trammed my own drill press. Worse than that, I have an X-Y table bolted
to the table 99% of the time, and, on top of that, I have another table,
made of wood, that is T-shaped so it can be quickly clmaped in the vise
mounted to the X-Y table. The leg of the "T" is a piece of 2X4.
How perpendicular can all that be?

Do inquiring (sp?) minds want to know?

Pete Stanaitis
---------------

Bob La Londe wrote:
Well, I tried to assemble the hole thing and the push rod threaded into
my piston crooked... How is that possible I wondered. I did everything
on the lathe. Oh, ****. No I didn't. My mini lathe was too small so I
only center drilled the piston on the lathe. I drilled it on the drill
press. I really need to throw this damn thing away. The table was
tilted side to side. I straightened that today, but found the table is
also slightly tilted front to back. GACK!!! Its not horrible for
punching holes in sheet, but I guess I need to add a mill drill to my
wish list for anything else.