This weekend we picked up a lovely old bench-top drill press from a fine fellow named Matt. Matt was given the drill press from an elderly neighbour who always took care of it. The neighbour probably owned it from new.
The drill press is a Craftsman and looks to be from around the early 1940s or late 1930s, either way it’s a beauty and runs like a dream. This drill press was made for Craftsman by Atlas (now Clausing).
During the 1920s Atlas Press added drill presses and metalworking lathes to their product lineup. During the 1930s they began making wood lathes. In 1934 they began making drill presses and wood lathes for Sears Roebuck, which marketed them under the Craftsman, Companion, and Dunlap names.
By the way vintagemachinery.org is a great site for information on vintage machines, including reprints of parts lists and brochures. The brochures for Craftsman go back almost a 100 years.
We do have two other drill presses, an Orbit (now Jet) and a Delta but the Orbit has a really bad wobble and the other is a pain to adjust. These didn’t cost me much so I’ll sell them.
The nice thing about this Craftsman is that it came with the optional “Multi-speed attachment” which is the pulley in the center (front pulley is behind the cover for safety). This option gives you a wide range of speeds for different materials and drill bits. With reasonable care this will be still be running fine for the next 80 years.
By the way I become interested in vintage drill presses after visiting the website of James Hurley. James breathes youth back into old machines and what an amazing job he does. Whether you like tools or not you can’t not be impressed with what James achieves, which in my opinion are works of art. Please check out his artistry at Iron Age Enterprises.
By the way this is what James has to say about the quality of these old machines:
Why Restore?
U.S. – made machinery from the ’30s through ’70s were produced by an industrial infrastructure we will never see the like of again. Technology, availability of materials, styling, and pride of craftsmanship, all combined during that period to produce tools that were far superior to most tools today.
For example; In 1957 Sears offered a bench-top drill press made by the King-Seeley corporation under the Craftsman marque. At that time The Model 100 sold for a whopping $97.00 – (without the motor) – Sounds like a great deal, doesn’t it? Well…. In 2018 dollars, that $97 equates to…..$866.41.
Let that sink in…. To get the equivalent machine today you’d have to spend over $850 !
Without the motor.
So before you call the scrap-guy and replace that old rusty drill press with something that can be sold for $200 AFTER being shipped from overseas, get in touch with us.
We restore those great old machines… Because they deserve it!
Happy Birthday Mum, we miss you and lastly, Happy St. David’s day.