Microlux Drill Press Depth Stop Modification

Having an early Microlux drill press with no bells or whistles I found myself needing to drill multiple holes  of the same depth for scale shelf adjusting pins in the Mission Style Bookcase I am building.  The new X-Y table attachment and vise make linear evenly spaced holes much easier, and a depth stop is the only thing required at this point.

Not having any blocks of aluminum to make the mounts from, I used rosewood.  I drilled 1/4 inch holes in each for the support rod which is a 1/4 by 20 6 inch stove bolt.  I drilled holes in the faces of them for the 10/32 mounting bolts, then marked, drilled and tapped mounting holes on the side of the drill head.

Depending on how well this works I may replace the rosewood with aluminum blocks both for looks and stability.

Needing a foot to act as a quill stop I looked at what I had available and decided on a 1/4 inch thick piece cut off of an old Macintosh desk stand.

The cut off piece had a half inch hole bored and then was cut in half leaving a piece with a 1/2" half moon cutout to clear the drill shaft while stopping the quill.   A 1/4 inch hole was drilled for the stove bolt to go through  to mount it to the rod with double locking nuts.

A spring was added to the top end of the stove bolt to keep the foot in contact with the quill and out of contact with the spinning shaft or chuck.  Depth adjustment is by the nut and wing nut between the blocks.  The wing nut really decreases possible throw and both may be replaced with  knurled flat wheels.   One thing I did do after completing this was to take it back apart and put a length of shrink tubing, un shrunk, over the bolt inside the spring above the top block.  This stops the annoying threads against spring jangle when drilling, smoothing up the action.  See last photo.