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Posted by David Sherman [24.32.202.83] on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 02:17:18 :
In Reply to: OT drill press questions posted by Kaegi [24.113.81.122] on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 02:02:27 :
If I remember right, Tool Town was selling that brand before Grizzly and Harbor Freight arrived on the scene. I think they were made in Taiwan (Formosa, get it?) before China got big into machine tools -- 1980s even. When I had my first good job and had just enough money to barely afford some slightly better tools (and my dad was still alive and wasn't giving up his 1950s Craftsman stuff), I bought a few Foremost tools from Tool Town. There was sand on the inside of the castings and bondo on the outside. Things didn't fit very well or run very smoothly, but they were still a lot more of a solid tool for the money that the stuff Sears (the only real low-end competition back then) was selling. If you're looking to buy a used Foremost tool, look for exactly the same thing being sold new at Harbor Freight, and make sure you're paying considerably less.
I think Foremost is distributed by an outfit in the Auburn or Renton or somewhere around there, and from what I've seen they're trying to move up-market, sort of like Grizzly does by bragging that their machines are made in Taiwan rather than China. I would still have to be convinced that they're really any better than what Harbor Freight sells.
As for that Cincinnati drill press, if you have room for it and can move it, it might be a good deal IF the bearings aren't worn out. It probably has babbitted bearings on the top shaft and bronze bushings in the quill. These must be actively oiled unlike today's sealed units. That means putting oil in the oil cups regularly, and wiping off what works its way out from time to time. Give all the shafts a good shake to make sure the bearings aren't worn before you buy it. Pouring new bearings is quit do-able, but know what you're in for before you pay money for the machine. As for the 3 phase motor, you can buy VFDs (variable frequency drives) nowadays for a couple hundred bucks that will drive up to a 3 horse 3-phase motor off a single-phase line with none of the problems of static or rotary phase converters, and best of all for an old drill press with only a couple of steps on the pulley, they'll let you dial the speed up and down above and below the normal speed. The only catch is that antique motors may not like the spiky waveforms put out by VFDs and their insulation might break down eventually.