Restoration of a War Machine

Here we have a Carlton radial drill press. This puppy was built for World War II in Cincinnati, Ohio. Let's clean it up a bit and see if it'll run today. Let's start out by checking our oil levels. Oil level here isn't looking all too good, but that should start flowing when the machine is running. We can see if we move this guy to the side. Built in Cincinnati, Ohio. On the other side of the column, oil level is looking pretty good here. Check that out. This is one powerful machine. Let's plug it in and check some more oil on the back. Back here, we're going to clean this guy up. Just rotate that occasionally. Cleans out your filters. And oil is looking pretty good. We've got a few drips of oil coming off the bottom of the machine here, but you know what they say, if it's leaking oil, that means it's got oil. That's an odd one. I did not expect there to be a green oil coming out of here. We're going to have to do some digging to find out what that is. Everything else looks to be pretty self-explanatory. We can hook up our coolant hose here, so when we test it out, we'll have some coolant to keep our drill bits nice and cool. Quick little snap. She should be good. That didn't sound too good. Oh, that's why. Don't mind me. Guess I got to pull that one out and go to the next one. That's going to be tricky. Well, that didn't work. That's going to be a little more than I thought. There we go. Try number two. Let's see if we can get it. So, although the plastic from the 1940s may not be in the best condition, hopefully the rest of the machine is. Oh, perfect. This guy can direct our coolant wherever we need it onto our part. Let's see what year this machine really is. Would you look at that? We went right by it and didn't even know. Right here, we've got our procurement code. This would have been from the U.S. government, and the number we're looking at is 1941. This means this machine was likely built for the industrial buildup right before Pearl Harbor. Thousands and thousands of machines were purchased by the U.S. government for the use of preparation for World War II. Really makes you wonder, what could this beauty of a machine been used on? We've got a little bit of grime that's collected on the main column. I just want to wipe off those main spots on there. Other than that, she's looking pretty good. We're going to lube up the top of the column and make sure that this thing can cycle up and down really nice and easy. On a rough surface like this, after we've wiped it off, we really want to make sure everything's covered in oil so we avoid that rough surface. For starting out our test hole, we're going to put a center drill in this chuck here. Before I do that, I want to make sure that the taper on here is all clean to make sure that we get the straightest, most accurate hole possible. We're going to crank that down, use our slide hammer, just like that. Easy. Falls right out. Make sure that that guy's nice and clean. It's pretty difficult to actually get up in there and clean, but we're going to assume it's somewhat clean today. Maybe just do a little right around the start of it. Looks pretty good. With that, we're going to send this up in there into the taper, and then we're going to end up punching that farther into the taper just to make sure it doesn't fall out. We're going to use this guy underneath here once we lower this column down. The column's nice and shiny, but not quite as lubricated as I want, so we're going to add a little bit more oil to the top here, maybe rub it around with a rag, and see if this guy can cycle up and down a little bit smoother. There we go. That's looking a lot better. Next on the list, installing the vise here. We've got three separate tables, but for today, I want to make sure that we've got one on there, so we're going to bring this vise right on over. Looks like one, two, three T-slots, and we should be good. Well, just kidding. I didn't make sure this table was clean first. We got to do that. First up, greasy rag. Try to eliminate some of that big stuff on there. Already looks world better. Next, a little bit of Scotch-Brite just to remove some of that surface rust. This table has seen some serious hits in the past. These guys have an auto-feed feature, and if you set that in, you really have to watch what you're doing, and it looks like a few people weren't doing exactly that, but I don't think it's as simple as going to the hardware store to get a replacement top for this guy. Next, I like to use some paste wax just to give these a nice little coating. Probably not necessary with how much oil naturally gets on this stuff because the coolant in these is part oil. That should be plenty. I should try to figure out a way to fill these holes. Nice thing about these T-slots, square head bolt goes in, can't turn. Boy, I'll say it feels pretty criminal putting on a dirty vise on here, but I could geek out cleaning this guy for a few hours, and that's something we don't have today. Not quite necessary for the machine either, but I'll come back and do it soon. Of course, the three nuts I found were all just a little bit different in size. Okay, for our test pieces, we've got three pieces of angle iron. We're gonna slide these in. You take a look up close, this vise is pretty neat. It's got these little ridges right there that your product can sit right on, so something like that is well away from these runners here because we don't want to drill into those like, looks like somebody did there, but in theory you could clamp something way down in the bottom if it was tall, but for me, put it up top, we'll be good to go. Three lined up. This guy actually has quite a fancy column lock. I can't push this there. I'm gonna have to go here, and all that's doing is a quick lock, and just like that, I can spin this hundreds of pounds of metal in this arm right to where I want it to be. Before I do this, I always want to make sure all of these three jaws are up inside of there. I have this lead handled slide hammer. I'm gonna set that right there. When that's where I want it, I'm gonna slam that down, and that jams that taper right up inside of there. Now we're ready for the center drill and start testing. I see an issue. That's not good. What I didn't think of when setting up this setup was the angle iron. With that, if my center drill is inside, I'm gonna bottom out on the angle iron itself right there, so I'm gonna need a different tool. Centering up on our hole isn't all that difficult when we're not too concerned about accuracy. It could take a little bit longer if we were, but today, nice and simple. That looks like right about the center of angle iron number one, maybe a bump this way. Now, I could have center punched these to make sure my bit doesn't wander, or I could have done a number of other things. The center drill would have been a real nice one, but today we're going with the small bit to open up the hole, and then our big bit. When it's all set, we're gonna lock the column, and now we can't move in any direction. So, we have the approximate size of our drill bit, and the general number for machining steel equals 1600. That's gonna be pretty fast. Let's pick an approximate speed in there. I know that I'll be moving to a bigger drill bit soon, so our speed's gonna have to slow down anyway, so I think 933 sounds pretty good to me. We're gonna move this guy to our first selection here, then within that, this guy makes an N-shaped pattern, so it's gonna be one, two, three. We're gonna go all the way to this side. That's one, two, three, and this guy likes to flop right back over. It's pretty clear to me that this machine has not been used in a long time. Take a look at this coolant. It is fully watered, nothing but it. That means our water and oil have fully separated, and we're trying to get them to mix back together, but it's gonna be a minute. Well, that was exciting. I don't know if you guys saw that, but this whole table was moving. This guy has some serious force, but not enough to move that unless we didn't check these. Somebody must have fully removed this table from here recently, because those guys are very, very loose. Let's try this again. Those guys are all tightened up. We're gonna crank this to its new location, and we'll see if it moves. Looks like after 85 years, this beast can still run like a dream. Let's see what other projects I can make, and let me know, how long do you think this machine will really run for?