Denbigh Drill Press

[DSEL74]

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160402/80939e985fde5c83955d9ab4a1a081fd.jpg

Put down some cash on one of these beauties today.

It is in it's original British racing green. I've read they came in machinery grey, royal blue, and British racing green. They apparently were in production up into the 70's. There were a few modifications/updates over the years and paint color may have changed with year of manufacture.

Doesn't seem to be much info about on the net regarding Denbigh drills other than the odd forum posts regarding other people looking for info.

Unfortunately one of the small flat belt pulleys has been changed for a fee pulley. You can see it on the power feed.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160402/6ecbbe5a1b631605257db2fb3586ef21.jpg

[DSEL74]

They also came in 20 & 24" this one I think is a 20"


Here is some of the info posted on another forum in regards to someone else purchasing one:





Hi Greg,
You have picked up quite a nice handy machine, Is there a dealers plate on it? These machines were frequently factored and passed on by the following machine tool dealers Vis-
Thomas P Headland located in Liverpool
Thomas W. Ward &Co of Sheffield , Glasgow,Manchester Cardiff Etc, In fact they had depots all over the U.K.
Gerald C Oldfield & Co. Machine tool dealers Paisley
I would imagine your machine may probably have been supplied in batches to Canada, possibly by Wards,? Although may have been a Canadian dealer also or directly by Denbighs By the plastic ball handles on your machine i would think it is a fairly recent machine 1950 onwards, Denbighs were still making that design until the early 1970/s By that time all the machines supplied were fitted with an opening mesh cage, Denbighs are pretty robust no frills machines, They make a lovely sound in back gear, and are pretty good for drilling from 1/4" up to 1&1/4" capacity
At the present time, my local museum, has a quite nice Denbigh milling machine sitting out in the rain (no surprises there !) I do not know what they plan to do with the poor thing
As well as churning out drilling machines &mills, Denbigh also made a nice little hand operated squeeze pin lift moulding machine for light casting (shallow box moulds) work.
From the column to the centre of your machine, is it 20" They made them in two sizes from memory, And one could also purchase a simple non back geared machine for drilling up to 1" capacity also, as well as a motorised 1/2" capacity machine.


Greg,
Your drilling machine, According to a leaflet from Denbigh, which i have beside me Your machine likely would be driven by a Hugh J Scott of Belfast electric motor,
This ties in with a 24" machine owned by a friend of mine which has a Scott motor, Although i would expect Denbigh would purchase their motors from various sources You require a motor of One & a half horse power , 1420 revs/minute The speed of the bottom shaft should be450 revs/min., Giving a speed range of 428, 277, 183 &118 in open gear, When engaging back gear, 80, 52, 34, &22 Revs/minute of spindle

Your feeds are .0038, .0072, .0136 (Feed per revolution of spindle)

The feed depth of spindle is 9"

20" machine weighs 9cwts
24" machine weighs 10cwts
Important cross the little belt on the auto feed.

They were made up here up here in Tipton Staffordshire (hence the Staffordshire knot) although that part now comes under the West Midlands.


Paul, I am delighted to see you have one of these nice old drilling machines, Please take off that horrible Hammerite blue, and repaint her in a slightly dark battleship grey, which was the colour that they were in when they left the works of The Denbigh Engineering Co, If you polish up its bright work, you will have a very handsome looking & handy machine.

I have never known a Denbigh to be reversing, I think it is somebody's home spun idea, When you change from direct drive into back gear or vice -versa, stop the machine and pull the belt round by hand, & pull your gear lever over to the appropriate setting, Or you will be liable to smash up the dog clutches in the gearbox or something worse.

I have worked in a couple of firms who had this pattern of Denbigh's, I also for a while many years ago purchased one but sold it on as my space was at a premium.

As regards the gearbox, the one annoying feature they have is throwing & leaking oil, Do not over fill the gearbox, only some reasonably thick oil in the bottom of the box, Unless you are doing a lot of work in back gear a coating on the gears of a gear lube I think would suffice, But every week you would have to lift off the top cover and oil the clutch & the upper parts of the clutch & shaft.

These little drilling machines were supplied in batches to various machine tool factors nationwide Some which spring to mind are Thos. P Headland of Liverpool,
P & W MacLellan & Co of Glasgow, Buck & Hickman who had branches all over the U. K. C& G Oldfield Ltd of Robertson St Glasgow, & finally Paisley to name a few

The last drilling machines made by Denbigh to this pattern were produced up until about 1970 when the firm ceased trading, This must have been the last folks to build a flat belt drive machine tool in the country except the manufacturers of special purpose machine tools such as very precise instrument lathes.


gear box has a very simple dog clutch, It will be happy smothered in love That is a good medium lubricating oil, The rest of the machine ditto.
might be the road to go down, Remove all the belt wheels as they are very easily broken, Top horizontal shaft, & gear box, little cast iron guard, feed mechanism , drill spindle etc. With this lot from memory as to the construction of these old things you should have a fair amount of taper pins & set screws to remove.
The table is a straight lift off job, As is motor and its pulley system at the bottom, By taking these off , you should find that it is a manageable weight.

The long vertical stay at the back of the Denbigh's, Which runs up the full height to the top "branch casting" I would leave alone if I could get off with it as its fit to that top branch or entablature is achieved by a white metal spacer poured in between both upon assembly, And if you disturb that set up it might prove problematic, I guess this was done for ease and economy of manufacture.

Be careful as that stay is a long slender cast- iron component, In situ very strong, but I would be frightened off giving it any shock impacts.

Possibly by going along this road, & borrowing a couple of reasonably strong buddy's, you could lower her onto the lorry tailgate on its side & the rest should be history except for the beer bill!

By removing the components you can clean, polish and adjust her back to as new.







I believe they have a No#3 morse taper.

[DSEL74]

i used to use one at the machine shop i worked at and it was a Dark Green just like a bottle green i don't think it had ever been repainted.
Definitely not grey or blue.

As it was in a machine shop it got used a lot and it was used until i left in about 1994 i think the shop has closed now but it put in a fair service since new, it was a old shop used to be a foundry originally.


Now to operate.

The back top gear box handle is low and high speed you change it with the machine stopped and rotate the belt by hand to lock it in place.
The smaller pulley at the top front 3 steps are for the power feed we never used it, it was never belted.

The one we had was coverted to electric ( at the time i was there) so we had a on off forward reverse switch and just changed belts and gearbox to change speed.

To engage feed the handle at the right 3 legs move to the right ( pivot) this engages the feed then you turn the small round handle at the front this gives you leverage for feeding.
to disengage you move the lever to the left, simple.

Can't see why it won't be a effective drill once fixed up, it was a safe drill as you could limit the torque it put out by having the flat belt a certain tightness.
So if it grabbed or jammed it would stall.
We only used it up to about 3/4 inch holes as we had a much larger radial arm drill for larger than this up to 2.5inch items.

i can still remember how shiney it was on the handles and table it was well used. On the high speed i still remember the spur gear noise so if you get that don't worry too much it is normal.


Again definitely dark Green ( bottle green colour code ) but they made have made them in different colours for different years of manufacture or different suppliers i don't know.

but i would be scratching under the blue to see if it was green.
Some manufactures do change colours in machine tools and or owners repaint them to what was the in thing at the time, but that one dark green definitely

[YBAF]

A beautiful old jigger. The yoof of today would say it is the ultimate Steam Punk drill. :cool:

[DSEL74]

They also came in 20 & 24" this one I think is a 20"


Here is some of the info posted on another forum in regards to someone else purchasing one:





Hi Greg,
You have picked up quite a nice handy machine, Is there a dealers plate on it? These machines were frequently factored and passed on by the following machine tool dealers Vis-
Thomas P Headland located in Liverpool
Thomas W. Ward &Co of Sheffield , Glasgow,Manchester Cardiff Etc, In fact they had depots all over the U.K.
Gerald C Oldfield & Co. Machine tool dealers Paisley
I would imagine your machine may probably have been supplied in batches to Canada, possibly by Wards,? Although may have been a Canadian dealer also or directly by Denbighs By the plastic ball handles on your machine i would think it is a fairly recent machine 1950 onwards, Denbighs were still making that design until the early 1970/s By that time all the machines supplied were fitted with an opening mesh cage, Denbighs are pretty robust no frills machines, They make a lovely sound in back gear, and are pretty good for drilling from 1/4" up to 1&1/4" capacity
At the present time, my local museum, has a quite nice Denbigh milling machine sitting out in the rain (no surprises there !) I do not know what they plan to do with the poor thing
As well as churning out drilling machines &mills, Denbigh also made a nice little hand operated squeeze pin lift moulding machine for light casting (shallow box moulds) work.
From the column to the centre of your machine, is it 20" They made them in two sizes from memory, And one could also purchase a simple non back geared machine for drilling up to 1" capacity also, as well as a motorised 1/2" capacity machine.


Greg,
Your drilling machine, According to a leaflet from Denbigh, which i have beside me Your machine likely would be driven by a Hugh J Scott of Belfast electric motor,
This ties in with a 24" machine owned by a friend of mine which has a Scott motor, Although i would expect Denbigh would purchase their motors from various sources You require a motor of One & a half horse power , 1420 revs/minute The speed of the bottom shaft should be450 revs/min., Giving a speed range of 428, 277, 183 &118 in open gear, When engaging back gear, 80, 52, 34, &22 Revs/minute of spindle

Your feeds are .0038, .0072, .0136 (Feed per revolution of spindle)

The feed depth of spindle is 9"

20" machine weighs 9cwts
24" machine weighs 10cwts
Important cross the little belt on the auto feed.



I believe they have a No#3 morse taper.

[DSEL74]

YBAF, I think she is a stunner, I have desired one for a very long time.

[YBAF]

Yer gunna have to replace that ugly v-belt with a flat belt. Although, probably a better colour then this one... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TF08E_301gY

[DSEL74]

Your so very, very right on that. Problem will be getting one to match.

[snapatap]

Looks like a good drill. I have been after one for a while to go with my Denbigh mills. I thought i had one but it was withdrawn from the auction :C.

[DSEL74]

The guy I bought the drill from also has a Denbigh mill for sale I was considering. But I just don't have the space until I can pay for the shed extension. I think he wants about $3000 for it which is probably too high.

[snapatap]

Yeah that's pretty dear for a Denbigh mill. They normally go for under $1000. The last one I bought only cost me $120.

[jhovel]

What size motor is on your drill?
I have a 1-1/2HP single phase motor with the 'right kind of frame' motor of the right vintage. Let me know if your want me to take pictures. If your motor is about that size, I'd be prepared to remove the motor off the machine its on and swap....

[DSEL74]

No idea joe, The original 3ph motor comes with the drill and the single phase motor fitted as well. According to the info I cut and pasted above it should be a 1½Hp 1420 Motor.

I can let you know what it is after I pick it up Thursday. You can shoot through some photos if you like.

I still haven't had a chance to work on putting those cast iron strips into the swiss Waldown vice, although I think I will need a bigger drill vice for the Denbigh.

[KBs PensNmore]

Yeah that's pretty dear for a Denbigh mill. They normally go for under $1000. The last one I bought only cost me $120.

Any chance of a pic of your $120 mill, please. Just want to see what you get for that sort of money.:2tsup:
Kryn

[wentyfalls]

Hey Greg

Did you pick it up on eBay?

I'm sure I saw it listed just last week with the v belt pulley and single phase motor.

I've got exactly the same drill, with the original 3 phase motor.

Mine is not as tidy as yours and took a bit of work to get running. The previous owner was going to make a letter box out of it. But I bought it for $50 so beggars can't be choosers.

Can you tell me what size your single phase motor is? I don't have three phase so need to change it or put on a vfd.

Rich

[DSEL74]

Ok the 240v motor is a 0.75kw.


She is home.

[DSEL74]

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160407/f724d6d0d60fb189d6044f41c9fe54cf.jpg

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160407/95eb53b8a70cba39d12eca39f7721d6c.jpg

[jhovel]

Ok the 240v motor is a 0.75kw.


She is home.

Do you want to stick with single phase? Is 1Hp enough? Sorry, havent taken photos of the 1.5Hp motor yet. Will try to do later on.

[DSEL74]

Yeah want to stick to single phase, I think 1Hp is under powered for a drill this size.

[DSEL74]

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160412/09f752e7f9559ed57278c1fdecaae1db.jpg

Says to request more information. So how I don't think I can.

[jhovel]

Do you want to stick with single phase? Is 1Hp enough? Sorry, havent taken photos of the 1.5Hp motor yet. Will try to do later on.

Sorry mate, the only time I think of the motor, its too dark to take photos. I'll try and remember during the day - one day....:D