Building a better drill press depth stop

[crzypete]

When I was in school we had a delta drill press with an ingenious depth stop. It was a standard nut that had serrations on it and a cap that had flats like the stop rod and the inverse of the serrations on the nut. To set the depth you could quickly spin the nut, then drop the cap down and secure it without worry of slippage. All in all this was a great system, but kinda hard for me to easily replicate on my numerous machines.

Years ago I came up with my version of this idea, and recently I converted my gang drill press to my adaptation.

Here it is:

I drilled the existing delta nut with twelve holes and created a new collar that slides up and down with a pin. The collar cannot spin, thus easily locking the nut.



here it is in place, but not locked:


and here it is in the locked position.


The delta nut is manufactured loose so it spins quickly. Each increment of the holes is approx .008, which is quite accurate enough for me.

Pete