Wait.... what? Drill press?
Yes, you read it correctly. How can one overclock a drill press?! Well, ask yourself this... How do you define overclock? faster? or perform better? Either way it boils down to having something do more then it could before.
Enter my harbor freight drill press:
Its a monster machine for home work and I would argue could be put through the ringer for industrial shop use as well.
While building a second CNC machine to aid in the ever burdening workload of making waterblocks for the EVGA community, I came across a problem.... How to drill a hole in a 2 foot long carbon steel plate... on EDGE?!
(the middle plate with the ballscrew on it)
No drill press harbor freight offered was up to that task. I looked at their biggest models, and it was only 2 feet from table to chuck bottom. Still a respectable distance just to drill holes, but it didn't cut the mustard for me. The part would only just clear the chuck. No room for the drill bit.
The drill press minus the head:
(notice the height of the column in relation to the horizontal rusted pipe running behind it)
THE HEAD:
I had a brain storm. Why not just get a new pipe for the column? I check McMaster, and they had a pipe in inventory that was within 0.063" of the original (3.125 vs 3.188) diameter but also well over twice as thick, so it would be much sturdier. Pretty darn close I thought. So I decided to take a gamble and buy the pipe. Typical McMaster fashion the pipe arrived the next day. A single cut on the bandsaw later (because it was SIX FEET HIGH) and we have the before and after:
(stock cast iron on the left, cold rolled Steel on the right)
Replace the old with the new and we have this:
(see how much taller in relation to the pipe??)
Slap the head on it and viola!
a gargantuan drill press!
Put a 4' ruler next to it:
With the actual distance gained from the overclock - or upgrade if you will:
I now have a drill press that has 36" in between the table, and the drill chuck. WIN! Yes, you can take the overclocking philosophy and apply it to anything.