No, I don’t think that’s it. The drill press is broken in woodshop currently. You have to stack blocks of wood to get your piece up to the height of the drill bit if drilling small things. This throws off the square of the project unless the things you’re stacking it on are square (most likely not). It’s also a bit of a safety hazard to be drilling on a potentially flimsy tower of whatever material you used to stack up there. So some people are just going over to metal shop to use a functional drill press.
Last I checked metal shop does not have a drill press, machine shop however does. Having used machine shop’s drill press on wood projects, all that is required is cleanup, which you should be doing anyways…
the issue with wood in the metal/machine shop is that wood is a sponge. It absorbs oil and expands. Nasty stuff when it is in/under the mechanisms. We allow it because often you need a backing board to drill with. However, the standing rule has always been that cleanup must be immaculate - which often fails. this is why we can’t have nice things.
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Which one is metal shop and which is machine shop? The one near the lasers with the welding equipment does have two drill presses, or did last time I was in there.
Both metal shop (with welding) and Machine shop (over by pottery/fired arts) have drill presses.
Seriously though, that drill press in woodshop has been broken for months…
The one in metal shop is one grade above horrible.
If that’s the motivation for woodshop users needing to use metal/machine shop drill presses then it sounds like Woodshop needs to get another drill press.
I’m not being selfish but there are bona fide reasons to limit the wood in the other two shops.
So official response in Metal shop is as long as the wood is cleaned up good, we are ok with it. Now if it is not cleaned up, There will be consequences of not cleaning up.
We have cameras in the shop so we can see who does not clean it up. I will review the camera footage to figure out who it is.
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That’s a wrap. Thanks for the reply Tim.
The Bridgeport was instrumental in milling down the mating surfaces and retention thru-holes for the laminated plywood trebuchet throwing arm in 2016. We used a shop vac in close proximity to the end mill while cutting to catch >99% of the chips before they could land then cleaned out the ways and vicinty afterward. Perhaps not ideal, but we got a nice clean precise cut out of it.
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Thanks. I will incorporate this information into my classes.
@motopilot the parts were ordered weeks ago from the manufacturer and finally came in yesterday. They were installed this afternoon.
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