Shopmade Drill Press Table

[Danny Thompson]

Back in November I posted a question asking for advice about acquiring or building a drill press table (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=68235).

One suggestion was a great-looking premade table from Woodpecker. What I liked most about it was its low fence with the T-track on top. What I thought was missing was a drawer, like those on some of the shopmade DP table examples that so many Creekers provided.

In the end, I combined the two. Here is what we call the "Shopmade Drill Press Table with Drawer."

Here is the table head-on.



TOP: Roughtly 17 3/4" x 30", the top is made primarily out of 3/4" maple plywood. The front edge of the ply is covered a 1/2" strip of Makore to match the drawer front. The plywood side and back edges are covered with iron-on veneer edging.



FENCE: The fence is 36" long, made of 4/4 hard maple, with the T-track embedded in the top front. I added a jig ruler to the front face.

DRAWER. The drawer is just shy of 4" x 17" x 22" and made of 1/2" ply with a 4/4 Makore face. Both sides are dadoed to ride the hardwood runners.




INSERT. The top has an 6" circle insert offset from the center of the table to allow it to be rotated as needed. I cut the hole and the inserts using a circle-cutting jig (see pic). It took me a while testing with scraps to get the cirlce just right, same with the inserts. But in the end it came out just right. If you look in the back of the drawer, you will see I cut a couple of extra inserts while I had the cutter set up.



BASE: The base is 6"h x 17 1/2"d x 24"w, made of 3/4" maple ply with 1" wide 4/4 Makore facing. Red Oak runners (3/4"h x 1"d) sit in 3/8" dadoes in the sides. Slots were cut in the bottom to accommodate mounting hardware. Below you can see the two black knobs that connect the shopmade table to the OEM table.



I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. All I need to do now is apply a finish.

Thanks to everyone who posted in November for your advice and inspiration. This took more work than I expected, primarily due to design, redesign, and a few hiccups along the way (I'm blaming my #4, but that's another post).

NOTE: If you need a DP table and don't need a drawer, I would go with the Woodpecker described in the prior post. It is pretty sweet.

[Jim Butterfield]

Danny,

It's a great looking table - functional AND classy. I don't quite understand the fence, though: is the maple piece lying flat on the table?

[Darren Fast]

Very nice! I built a similar table and have been very happy with it. I'm curious why you thought the low fence was a plus?

[Bruce Page]

Very slick!

[Norman Pyles]

Hey that looks like my drillpress. How do you like the keyless chuck? Great job on the table. I have one of them on my to do list.

[Danny Thompson]

Jim, yes, the maple fence is laying flat on the table, but it has a rabbet cut out at the top front edge to accommodate the T-track. The ruler tape is supposed to fit into the track, but was just barely too wide for mine, but I found it fit perfectly under the track. Make sense?



Darren, my preference for the low fence came from some posts and product descriptions that indicated high fences sometimes interfere with the drill chuck. Do you find you sometimes need a high fence?

Norman, yessir, it's one of those $529 Craftsman Professionals that went on "sale" for $179 last fall. It's been great, but I have had a problem with the keyless chuck losing its grip on bits. This was particularly true with the circle-cutting jig and my forstner bits. Got any tips?

[Eddie Darby]

Nice table! Thanks for posting!
What type/model of Drill Press do you have?
What are the two red knobs underneath the table for?

[Danny Thompson]

Thanks, Eddie.

It's a Craftsman Professional "17-in DRILL PRESS with LASER-TRAC" Model No. 152-229010. Back in the fall, Sears put this $529 model on sale for $179. Many creekers snapped them up; many others weren't so lucky. Turns out the $179 price may have been a mistake. It appears Sears may have intended to put a benchtop model on sale for $179 and this one for $479. Win some - lose some.

The two red knobs are original to the machine and are meant hold a table extension bar in place. The shopmade table made the extension bar obsolete. Not wanting to lose it, however, I stored the extension bar in the drawer and, since they were out of the way anyway, I left the knobs in place.

[gary Zimmel]

Danny,

Nice looking drill press table. I like the design and think I will have to steal some of your ideas.
Thanks for the post.

[Danny Thompson]

For those of you interested in playing around with this design, I have attached my working drawing.

One issue I ran into was related to the way I cut the drawer facing. I cut it out of a single board, but had to account for the saw kerf between the ends of the drawer face and the vertical side pieces. The final face needed to be 6" x 24". I started with 4/4 S2S Makore. Here is my cutting sequence:

1) Ripped and cross-cut the board the board 6 1/4" x 24 1/2".
2) Jointed one long edge.
3) Ripped 1" off of the jointed edge
4) Ripped the next 4" in sequence.
5) Ripped 1" more in sequence.
6) Cross-cut 1" off of one end of the 4"-wide board.
7) Measure and cross-cut the next 22" in sequence.
8) Measure and cross-cut the last 1" in sequence.
9) Tightly align the 1", 22", and 1" drawer pieces in sequence.
10) Align the grain of the top and bottom 1" strips with the center drawer section and mark each end to length.
11) Cross-cut the top top and bottom 1" strips to length (cutting should occur on both ends, not just one).
12) Remove any sawmarks by lightly planning.
13) Glue the 1" frame pieces together (butt-jointed).
14) Handplane the edges of the drawer face to fit.

The end result is a drawer with grain that is alighed, but the vertical 1" strips are misaligned slightly (by the width of the kerf) with the grain of the long 1" strips. However, this avoids gaps between the ends of the drawer and the vertical 1" strips and preserves grain alighment along the majority of the board.

There may be a better cutting sequence. I am interested in how any of you attack this problem.

[Chuck Lenz]

Whatever happened to the days of just clamping a piece of scrap wood on the drill press table ? So what happens when you drill through the table/drawer combo top ? Doesn't the drawer end up with sawdust in it ?

[Danny Thompson]

Good questions, Chuck. I'll give it my best shot.

Q: Why not clamp to the existing table?

A: I found I had trouble clamping to the existing table due to the unevenness of its bottom. I was always searching around blindly for a good clamping location. I'll admit, one way to mitigate this is a clamp that fits into the slots in the manufacturer's dp table, but these other considerations led me away from that option.

1) I wanted a reliable fence for drilling holes in sequence. I have seen a trick where some just use a magnetic tool strip for a fence, which isn't a bad idea.

2) I found it difficult to hold a some workpieces level, even while clamped, due to their length. At twice the width of the original table, that should be less of a problem.

3) I wanted a drawer for my bits and DP-related tools relatively close to my DP, which is across the garage from my toolchest.

Q: Doesn't the drawer end up with sawdust in it?

A: Short answer, No. I guarded against drill-through by making an enclosed drawer box on which the top sits. The top is 3/4", but below it is another 3/4" piece that serves as a drawer top. In addition, the drawer top serves as support for the replaceable insert. The only way I will get sawdust in the drawer will be if either:

a) I leave the drawer open during operation, or
b) I drill 1 1/2" through the table top.

The first sometimes happens, the second shouldn't.

[Chuck Lenz]

Well it looks nice, I'll give you that much.

[Danny Thompson]

Thanks. I should say that LOML also considered this project a little over-the-top.

I'll confess that I first made a simpler one, but I ripped it up with my pre-rehab #4 trying to get the edging flush with the ply. I reverted to sanding the edge flush, but the final product was sloped down on the edges, so I chucked it and decided I would "Do it right!" With that said, this also offered me a chance to try a drawer with a dado and guide rails. So I saw it as a learning experience on a piece that wasn't so important.

[Jim Ciesla]

Impressive! Very nice job!