@LittleBlackDuck Very cool project! Not entirely sure how practical that would be for the type of woodworking I typically do or what use case I could find for it, but regardless that’s super up-my-alley and I like the detail and precision you put into it.
I was going to avoid raising this as it’s a digression from the drill press fences themselves, but oh well, you got me going back down the rabbit hole:
As I mentioned my own previously considered project of developing something like that for the lathe: For the speargun project I’ve been planning and have mentioned on here in the past, I will need to drill some large diameter (⅞”-1.25”) holes fairly deep (6-10”) in the end surface of my teak blanks, which will measure somewhere around 3” by 2.5” in cross section. Those holes will need to be perfectly parallel to the orientation of the laminated piece they are drilled into. Basically this: With the internal hole being perfectly parallel to the length of the overall part, which would vary speargun to speargun (different lengths of overall speargun) but would be in the general range of 20” to 40”.
Having given it a lot of thought, I decided this would be an absolute NIGHTMARE to attempt on my Nova Voyager Drill Press. Turning the table EXACTLY 90 degrees, clamping this part to it PERFECTLY straight, lining up the fence… this would wind up being impossible. So I sat with the idea of “well then, how the heck am I going to drill such a hole?” Until I stumbled upon this article: https://www.woodsmith.com/article/horizontal-drilling-on-the-lathe/ This clever jig relies on the spindle being calibrated to the lathe- which I’ve already done- and just seems like a considerably more capable way of accomplishing the task. With that said, I did notice one outstanding issue. Per the diagram I drew, the values for dimensions A and B need to be precise- ideally within 3 thousandths of an inch of intended, more or less? While this drill jig seems great, it doesn’t offer micro adjustability in either axis it controls- height or fence. If I need to adjust it, I will be reliant on not overdoing adjustments once the locking knobs are loose- all of which would likely lead to drastic swings back and forth trying to fine tune a dimension. So I figured “what if I designed my own version of this jig that relied on lead screw movements the way an XY table does? That could lend itself to achieving the precision of an XY table”.
The issue is, it would need to fit my existing lathe, and would also need to have adjustability in a Z height axis. So unlike in your project, just slapping an existing XY table onto the bed of my lathe wouldn’t be accomplishing what I am seeking. I wound up painstakingly brainstorming my way through a “XZ” table. Here’s a few of my rough sketches to give an idea of what I mean:
The lead screw would run straight down the runner in the bed gap, the 4 support rods running on linear bearings would be on the outside of the lathe bed. The fence would work similarly on a lead screw, with its components recessed within a phenolic top so as to reduce the minimum height the top would sit off the lathe bed at its furthest position.
While this project is definitely possible, the further I got into planning it, the more I realized that it was a LOT. Just putting parts into my cart on McMaster-Carr.com - it would likely run me over $1000 for all the parts that would go into the positioning mechanisms for both axises. And that’s not accounting for the cost of the wood parts, the phenolic top, machining the phenolic top, etc.
So I wound up coming up with a potential alternative solution. I’ll build the jig as shown in the article, but use a lathe bed extension and make the jig small enough that the tailstock can fit on the bed behind it. Then, I’ll use precise equipment like a height gauge or calipers to accurately mark the A and B positioning for the center of the hole, on a secondary piece of wood. I’ll put live centers in both the headstock and tailstock, and position this wood locator between the live centers in accordance with my markings. Ill then raise the table and move the fence against the wood, which should be held in the correct position by the headstock tailstock combo. Then I can remove the helper piece, remove the tailstock, and drill the actual teak part with the fence and height having been set by the chucked positions. Worst case, this doesn’t work, and I end up needing to build the crazy lead screw version I planned out. Otherwise, it’ll be a clever workaround that saved me like $1500+ in building an excessive jig.
