Drilling Machines
Drilling machines may be of two kinds, hand or power operated. For drilling small holes in metal it is necessary to run the drill fast, therefore the drill chuck is usually driven by gearing in order to produce high drill speed without turning the handle too fast. A small hand drill is shown at Fig. 167, A. As will be observed, the chuck spindle is driven by a small bevel pinion, which in turn, is operated by a large bevel gear turned by a crank. The gear ratio is such that one turn of the handle will turn the chuck five or six revolutions. A drill of this design is not suited for drills any larger than one-quarter inch. For use with drills ranging from one-eighth to three-eighths, or even half-inch the hand drill presses shown at C and D are used. These have a pad at the upper end by which pressure may be exerted with the chest in order to feed the drill into the work, and for this reason they are termed “breast drills.” The form at C has compound gearing, the drill chuck being driven by the usual form of bevel pinion in mesh with a larger bevel gear at one end of a countershaft. A small helical spur pinion at the other end of this countershaft receives its motion from a larger gear turned by the hand crank. This arrangement of gearing permits of high spindle speed without the use of large gears, as would be necessary if but two were used. The form at D gives two speeds, one for use with small drills is obtained by engaging the lower bevel pinion with the chuck spindle and driving it by the large ring gear. The slow speed is obtained by shifting the clutch so that the top bevel pinion drives the drill chuck. As this meshes with a gear but slightly larger in diameter, a slow speed of the drill chuck is possible. Breast drills are provided with a handle screwed into the side of the frame, these are used to steady the drill press. For drilling extremely large holes which are beyond the capacity of the usual form of drill press the ratchet form shown at B, may be used or the bit brace outlined at E. The drills used with either of these have square shanks, whereas those used in the drill presses have round shanks. The bit brace is also used widely in wood work and the form shown is provided with a ratchet by which the bit chuck may be turned through only a portion of a revolution in either direction if desired.