Things have quieted down here in the Secret Underground Lab, at least for now. But it's still crazy and uncertain overall. About half of the other Tenants in the basement, my friends, have moved out in disgust. Several more will be moving out soon. Everyone, including me, is looking at other buildings to move to. I'm committed to staying here until the end of my lease in July 2025. Whether I'm going to stay after that is uncertain. It depends how things are looking here by next summer.
It's getting quieter here. The construction crews have stepped up the pace and are getting some of the work done. They are finishing up most of the safety things. I'm thankful for that.
The management company has ordered me to vacate four of the other spaces that I had expanded into over the last two years. No sensible reason why. I was paying rent on them, and there's no one else coming in. They are off doing some mysterious planning, and won't even talk to us, the Tenants. Whatever. I'm convinced that they have no idea what they are doing.
So, I'm losing about 1000 sq ft of space here. Initially, I looked at renting some storage space at some other location nearby. Then I thought, nah, I really should just shrink down. I need to stop expanding my rental area to house loosely organized junk. Now I'm in the middle of a big cleanup, compression, reorganization of my stuff into a smaller area. It's a lot of work, but it's actually a good thing for me to do right now. Mentally, physically, financially. Get rid of junk, get everything I'm keeping more organized, lower my monthly rent. It puts me in a better position to move, if/when I decide to. Do it now.
I'm shuffling shelving units, boxes and machines. A logistical puzzle to squeeze it all in. As part of it, I'm moving some of my antique project machines out of their storage corners and into the working shop area. These are the machines that don't need very much work to become operational. And I can use them. So, I may as well get them running now. Let them earn their square footage in my shop.
Here's the first example:
I moved the Big Green Buffalo into the woodworking shop. This is a Buffalo Forge Company 20" Drill Press from the 1930's. It's kinda grimy, but it's actually in nice condition. Nothing broken, everything spins and moves as it should. All it really needs is to build a motor mount on the back, hook up a motor and switch, and fit it with a new flat belt. And I'll clean it up a little bit.
I found this drill press ten years ago. Or it found me. A friend called me and said that a friend of his needed to get rid of a big old drill press. He said that it was a Buffalo, and stood about 6' tall. He called me because he knew that I was kinda into old machines. And he didn't want to see it go to the scrap yard. Over the phone, he said to bring a trailer and $100 and take it away......How could I refuse?
It was in North Hollywood, about 45 miles from here. I was surprised at the condition it was in. He had been using it fairly recently, but had needed the motor for something else. I brought it home, and it's been parked in the back room for ten years. Waiting its turn to be brought into service again.
You may have seen on other places in this thread that I have four of these big "camelback" drill presses. Two Buffalos and two Royersfords. They were competing companies back in those days, 1910 to 1960, and their drill presses are similar in design and specifications. My 1945 Royersford 21 is in beautiful condition. It's right down the aisle in the machine shop, and I use it all the time. It's a wonderful machine. I sometimes use it for woodworking jobs, but I don't like to, because it's usually slimy with cutting oil.
So, my plan for the Green Buffalo is to place it in the woodworking shop and keep it clean and dry of oil. Ready for woodworking only. Set up for slow speed, high torque. Perfect for big Forstner bits through maple.
This Buffalo is a basic model, with just a standard bar quill handle, plus the geared crank downfeed. The crank handle and shaft are missing from the geared downfeed, but I don't think I'd ever use it for woodworking.
Here's the upper shaft assembly. It has 8 speeds; four steps on the flat pulleys. The thing in the middle is the back gear drive. The upper shaft is actually two halves. With the knob/pin engaged, the halves are connected together in direct drive for the four high speeds. Pull the knob and swing that side gear up into engagement, and it goes into Back Gear for the four lower speeds. Depending on how I set up the motor drive, the working speed range will be from about 430 rpm top speed down to 15 rpm at the bottom. I'll probably normally keep this drill press set up on the 2nd step in High range, about 170 rpm. That's the speed I normally have the Royersford set at, and I've found that it works well for, like, a 2" Forstner bit through maple.
Here's the countershaft. A 2" wide flat belt runs between this step pulley and the one up on top. It originally had a leather belt, but these days they make composite fiber and rubber flat belts that have much better traction and power. And they are brown and even look almost like leather. Available from McMasters for $4 per foot. Cut to length and join with Alligator clips. I need to order some. The Royersford needs a new belt too.
That large V-belt pulley on the end of the countershaft is not original. Back in the 1930's, when this machine entered service, it would have had a pair of fast/loose 2" wide x 10" diameter flat belt pulleys on there. A 2" wide leather belt would run up to the lineshaft on the ceiling for power. Somewhere back in its history, it was given its own electric motor and a modern V-belt drive.
For the motor drive, I need to build a wooden bracket shelf thing above and off to the side of the countershaft. It'll be attached right to the wooden base frame. I'll pick out a nice old-looking 1 HP motor for it. That's all it really needs for woodworking duty. And I'll wire it up with a dust-tight NEMA 3 drum switch.
That's about all this machine needs.
It's going to be a very useful machine. And it just looks so cool being there.
It just so happens that the two medium size drill presses that I use for woodworking are also Buffalos! Same company, Buffalo Forge, but from different eras. The one on the left is from the 1940's and the one on the right is from the 1960's, I believe. A herd of three Buffalos. By the way, I have 6 more Buffalo Forge drill presses of various sizes over in the other bay.
They are both wonderful lifetime machines. I use these two daily.
While I was shuffling benches around, I also moved this bench over into the machine shop and set the Avey Sensitive Drill and the small tapping drill press on it. Before, they were on a cabinet. I like to use the Avey sitting down, and I was straining my back and neck leaning forward to see what I was drilling tiny holes in. This bench has knee clearance. Much more comfortable.