I have not had time at all in the last few months to work on this project. I finally just got back in the shop a couple weeks ago after the summer from hell and had some customer planes that needed done first. Now that the first few of those are waiting for finishes to cure I can get back to my drill press.

I have decided I am not going to restore this to original condition. It is going to be what they call in the classic car world a resto-mod. I've decided on a metallic gold for the paint color. That original Dunlap paint is almost gold and almost beige at the same time and it bugs me.

I REALLY want to find the original headband for one of these old Craftsman/Dunlap/King Sealy drill presses so I can polish the ever loving hell out of it and put it on this one. They are very hard to come by it seems so I may not put that on the resto-mod list.

One thing I did come by at a very fair price was the triple handle off the Craftsman variant. Unfortunately there are a few issues with the feed mechanism that came with it. As in its about an 1/8" to short. I am super thankful that our very own HookieKen offered up his machining services to adjust the stock feed mechanism to fit the triple handle base plate.

My image above is kind of terrible but the Craftsman feed arm part is right next to the chrome triple handle base. The stock Dunlap is on the right. Ken is going to shorten the stock part and bore a hole to fit the pin that holds the handle plate on for me.

And just for Ken I put them thru shock water tonight…aka my cheap Chinese ultrasonic parts cleaner. I call it shock water because if you put your fingers in there…whether its running or not…they get a tad tingly. Needless to say I now unplug it before reaching in.

However shock water does do a FANTASTIC job of cleaning and I can't believe I took so long sitting on the fence deciding if I wanted one.

Top part is freshly oiled after a shock water bath and the bottom part is what it looked like when it went in. I did absolutely nothing but mix up some solution, twist a couple knobs, and then watch TV. I seriously should have bought one of these years ago. Now its on to find one that doesn't feel as though its trying to recreate a scene from Groundhog's Day every time I use it.

That wraps up this post. Not a lot got done but damn is it nice to be working on things again.