I bought one of these new way back in the 70's. Over those years I whacked the chuck and bent the spindle which caused a lot of runout of the drill bits. I lived with it for many years until one day I finally had enough and decided to fix it only to find out that the spindle assembly is no longer available new. I searched the regular sources ... EBay ... Market Place ... etc ... and what I found was too expensive ... for me ... or didn't look in very good shape. So I made the decision to see if I could convert it to using ER32 collets. Having a machine shop made that decision easier to make. I basically replaced the Jacobs chuck with a block of steel and turned the assembly in the lathe so it was all concentric and did all the stuff to fit ER32 collets. The drill bits run dead nuts now. Sure .. it's kind of a hassle to change out collets but I'm not in that big of a hurry anymore plus I did make an adapter to use a regular Jacobs chuck if I want to.
Congratulations on your fabrication and making a good drill press even better. You can attempt to straighten the OEM spindle if you want to give it a try. I have had great success with fixing run out on spindles that have a minor bend. Most of the time the spindle is bent just above the tape and before the thrust collar.
I bought one of these new way back in the 70's. Over those years I whacked the chuck and bent the spindle which caused a lot of runout of the drill bits. I lived with it for many years until one day I finally had enough and decided to fix it only to find out that the spindle assembly is no longer available new. I searched the regular sources ... EBay ... Market Place ... etc ... and what I found was too expensive ... for me ... or didn't look in very good shape. So I made the decision to see if I could convert it to using ER32 collets. Having a machine shop made that decision easier to make. I basically replaced the Jacobs chuck with a block of steel and turned the assembly in the lathe so it was all concentric and did all the stuff to fit ER32 collets. The drill bits run dead nuts now. Sure .. it's kind of a hassle to change out collets but I'm not in that big of a hurry anymore plus I did make an adapter to use a regular Jacobs chuck if I want to.
Congratulations on your fabrication and making a good drill press even better. You can attempt to straighten the OEM spindle if you want to give it a try. I have had great success with fixing run out on spindles that have a minor bend. Most of the time the spindle is bent just above the tape and before the thrust collar.