[SEL] Portland Gift - Cole Drill

[Joe Prindle]

Hi Marv,
What is your opinion on the cole vise? I have never used one, and am
curious to know how well they work. They look a little primitive, but then
again so does the cole drill, and I know that it works fantastic.
I used mine again this year before our show in Baraboo. When they cut the
keyway in the crankshaft on my corliss engine, they did it on a planer.
When using a shaper or a planer, you need to start and finish the cut in
"open air". Plunging isn't an option. SO, they started at one end of the
shaft and cut the keyway about 4 feet long, right through the section of
shaft that runs in the outboard bearing. Since a journal with a keyseat
3/8" deep, an inch wide and 16 inches long would tend to be a little rough
on the babbit; they made up a filler strip and put it in the keyway. It
was held in by peining it in place. This probably worked good for the
first hundred years, but enough moisture had gotten under the filler strip
to cause it to stand proud, resulting in a hot bearing. I got the strip
loose and then cleaned everything out and put the strip back in. Since I
didn't want to pein it and make the journal look like the surface of the
moon, I used the cole drill to drill and countersink four 3/8-16 flat head
screws through the strip into the crankshaft. I loctited the screws in and
then drawfiled the heads off so that I had a nice smooth shaft, again. I
could have used a hand held drill, but I can never drill a nice straight
hole with those things. My magnetic mount drill wouldn't work because it
doesn't like to stick to round surfaces. The cole drill worked great
because the narrow base has slots in it and I made a couple of vee blocks
on my shaper to fit the base and then clamped the whole thing in place. To
drill, countersink, counterbore and tap those four holes only took about 2
1/2 hours, and everything was nice and straight and fit well. I couldn't
have gotten a better job if I had done it on a really huge mill. Today I
finished a pattern to cast a couple new shoes to fit on the bottom of the
cole drill. One will be a long vee block and the other is going to be
wider with a series of holes drilled in it to accomodate difficult
clamping arrangements.
One modification that I suggest is to remove the crank and make a shank
for it so you can use an electric drill to turn the quill. If you reach in
and use a screwdriver to depress the ratchet pawl, the ratchet should
unscrew and you can remove the crank. It is one of those three handed
projects, but it only takes a minute. Then you can make up an adapter. I
like to use my cordless drill set on the slow speed, operating it with one
hand and turning the feed know on the quill with the other. It works great
and sometimes you get into a spot where you can't turn the crank full
swing and ratcheting it makes a lot more work out of the job.
Sorry for rambling, but by now you all know how prone I am to do so.....
Later,
Joe
--- MARVIN HEDBERG <marvhed at ecenet.com> wrote:
> marv in minn
> ( i have both the vise and drill :-))
> 


=====
Joe Prindle
Patternmaker, Founder & Machinist
See my 1889 Reynolds Corliss at:
www.tznet.com/jprindle
Our Club:
www.badgersteamandgas.com
See Yoo in Baraboo!


		
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