Drill-Press laser cross-hairs for an approximate zero
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2015 7:06 pm
All:
One somewhat minor thing I did with the new spindle was to get one of those cheap drill-press laser guides. I think mine came from PeachTree woodworking. While clearly it's not going to get me "under a mil" in repeatability, most of my jobs have the lower-left 0-0 inside the material anyway. I was happy to see the beams, even when attached to the spindle, the beams go down to the chuck, bit and material.
As for alignment, the piece they send is okay, but the heavy coat of paint on the main shaft means it won't actually go into a properly-sized 3/8" collet. I ended up removing the paint from the main shaft so it would "almost" fit. Why they couldn't use a standard size I'll never know.
Here's what it looks like. It was easy to install and reasonably easy to align, and gives "good enough" results. Plus, what's not fun about watching a laser cross-hairs moving across your work?
Enjoy!
Thom
One somewhat minor thing I did with the new spindle was to get one of those cheap drill-press laser guides. I think mine came from PeachTree woodworking. While clearly it's not going to get me "under a mil" in repeatability, most of my jobs have the lower-left 0-0 inside the material anyway. I was happy to see the beams, even when attached to the spindle, the beams go down to the chuck, bit and material.
As for alignment, the piece they send is okay, but the heavy coat of paint on the main shaft means it won't actually go into a properly-sized 3/8" collet. I ended up removing the paint from the main shaft so it would "almost" fit. Why they couldn't use a standard size I'll never know.
Here's what it looks like. It was easy to install and reasonably easy to align, and gives "good enough" results. Plus, what's not fun about watching a laser cross-hairs moving across your work?
Enjoy!
Thom