I got a new drill press for my birthday. It's a 15" Palmgren, a significant
upgrade my 12" Delta.

A new Drill press deserves a new Auxiliary table. This is my third Aux
table. The first was something like a pieces of plywood 2 clamps and a
board.

Version 2 was 48" wide with and integrated fence. The top/fence slid fore
and aft on a sub-base, and was secured by two cam locks. Version 2 was nice
but it left room for improvement: The cam locks turned out to me far more
fussy to operate blindly (under the table) than I had anticipated
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...=1,43455,52799. Also,
the integrated fence/table reduced the already modest swing to a mere 5".
Lastly, 48" was just took up more space than was warranted.

So, now I have version 3. This one is 30 x 13.5 (less the missing corners)
with a 36" fence. The fence is high on the left to accommodate "upstanding"
parts and low on the right to pass the handles. I cut the front corners
because they really do nothing to support a workpiece, and they impede
access to the table height lock and crank in the rear. Although it does not
show in the photo, there is a replaceable square in the center of the table.

The clamping fence is something that my dad encouraged me to do (he has been
using a similar setup for a while). It takes up a little more space left and
right, but it can be completely removed very quickly, and can be pivoted by
one end for extra precise adjustment.

The knobs are a bit of an experiment. I laminated 2 pieces of 5/4 maple, and
drilled out the finger recesses with a 1-5/8" forstner (actually sawtooth)
forstner bit. I drilled a 21/64th" hole in the center and threaded in a
headless 3/8" bolt. I was able to chuck the headless bolt in a regular drill
chuck on the lathe. I got a little bit of chipout on the leading edge of the
engrain finger arcs, but I ended up filing a chamfer on all of those edges
anyway. No insert was necessary in the maple, just a little wax on wooden
threads.

I considered T-tracks, but there are very few clamping needs that can't be
met by either clamping to the fence or the edge. I think I will leave it
naked, as I like the relative grippyness of the unfinished surface.

Thanks for looking,

Steve

C & S wrote:
I got a new drill press for my birthday. It's a 15" Palmgren, a significant
upgrade my 12" Delta.

A new Drill press deserves a new Auxiliary table. This is my third Aux
table.

Looks good!

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/