On 2010-12-28, Vernon wrote:
Gentlemen,

I have a couple of Milwaukee Steel Hawg magnetic drill presses. One is
a model 4240 and the other, a 4245. Both use different "quick change"
cutters which are not cross compatible.
model Milwaukee drills use a #3 morse taper arbor that can be made
compatible with the 4245 (but not the 4240) cutters by means of an
adapter. Therefore, the machines appear to be backwardly compatible
with the older cutters but not forwardly compatible.

Anybody have any experience with these older machines? I would like
to be able to use the later threaded type cutters with either or both
of these cutters, if possible. It would also be good to be able to
use the cutters in a drill press.

[ ... ]

And whichever one I go with I would like to be able
to use the cutters on my Chinese drill press. If I'm not mistaken the
Jacobs chuck on the drill press fits onto an arbor with a #3 morse
taper.

*Which* Chinese drill press? Mine (actually from Taiwan back
around the late 1970s) uses a MT-2 arbor. (I would like it to use a
MT-3, simply so I could swap things directly between it and my lathe
tailstock, but the quill in the drill press is not large enough to
handle a MT-3 socket. This is one of the floor-standing ones with the
16-speed belt setup. Yes, there are larger drill presses (from China
and elsewhere) which have MT-3 sockets -- or even larger, but not this
one.

And I have my doubts that the entire setup from spindle up
through head, down through column and out to table is rigid enough to
use an annular cutter without a pilot anyway.

But -- you *could* get a MT-2 blank (if MT-2 is what fits your
drill press) and pop it into the lathe spindle (with whatever reducing
collar is necessary) and turn the other end to the proper dimensions to
accept the cutters. Those blank arbors are fairly inexpensive, and
would let you test whether your drill press is rigid enough for the
task.

Since I don't have one of the Milwaukee mag base drills, I don't
know what the mounting is for the cutters -- but if you have a lathe and
a mill, it is likely that you can make the necessary modifications to
the mild steel end of the blank MT-2 (or MT-3) arbor.

I've used these to make adaptors for two different sized
TapMatic tapping heads -- both of which have threaded holes for the
arbors instead of the more common Jacobs taper.

I suspect that the combined length of a chuck plus even a
screw-machine length drill bit would be too great to work with most mag
drills -- which are short to maximize rigidity -- one of the reasons
that a typical drill press is probably not rigid enough.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---