Drill Press Adapter Plate

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In the past I've made drill press adapter plates, today I had to make 3 more for some customers, and thought I would sent in a description and a couple of photos.The plate is a piece of 1/2" steel plate, with a series of holes drilled and tapped to match the slots in the drill press vise, these are for mounting the vise to the plate. Slots are cut into the plate to match the t-nut slots in the drill press table, so the plate can be anchored to the table. The first photo shows the vise all the way forward, the second shows pulled all the way back, roughy about 8" of vise travel, the last photo shows the plate itself, with radius corners for safety, no pointy corners to walk into. With this plate, there is 4 bolts holding the vise to the plate and 4 bolts holding the plate to the drill press table.Jack Attached Images
Reply:Very good work!   I wouldn't mind having one meself.    They're gonna really smooth out somebody's drill positioning time.  How did you slot the holes?   Short of a mill, I can think of several ways I do things like that.  They're all time consuming and clumsy.    I sure wouldn't mind finding a better way if I could.   I wish I had a brother in law in the waterjetting business.
Reply:I like that very much,  the good ideas just keep spilling out my ears though, never enough time!! City of L.A. Structural; Manual & Semi-Automatic;"Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore."Job 28:1,2Lincoln, Miller, Victor & ISV BibleDanny
Reply:Beezer... Here's what I did when I had a lot of repetative slots to cut. I put a piece of 1/8 plate in the mill and milled the slot slightly oversized and over length. the amount oversized was deternimed by the distance from the side of my plasma cutter tip to the cut line. Then all I did was clamp the template in place and run the plasma cutter around the inside of the slot. Pick it up and move it to the next location and repeat. Since the slots were all the same dist. from the edge of the plate I made a fence to ride on the edge so every one ended up the same. A centerline on the machined slot made location fast and simple. I think I cut all 6 slots on one plate in less time than it took me to mill the template.Nice plate by the way. Looks like a lot better system for adjusting the vise and its some what repeatable.
Reply:Beezer,On this set I drilled the 5/8" holes at the end of the slots, then with a straight edge, used a Hypertherm 1250 plasma cutter to slice out the steel between the holes. In the past I've also used a mill to cut the slots, the plasma cutter is faster and the the 1250 cuts 1/2" plate very cleanly.Jack
Reply:I just finished the plate for my other drill press, its a Harbor Freight, 20" floor model, it similar to the other plate,but this come in from the side, as the other came in from the front and this plate is also drilled for 3 different vises. a 6" Palmgren, a 6" ShopFox (with jaws for round objects), and a 4" Craftsman (relabeled Palmgren) angle vise.Jack Attached Images
Reply:neet idea ,and nice workChuckASME Pressure Vessel welder
Reply:Very innovative thinking!  I like it, gonna borrow your idea and make my own.Miller Thunderbolt 225Millermatic 130 XPLincoln HD 100 Forney C-5bt Arc welderPlasma Cutter Gianteach Cut40ACent Machinery Bandsaw Cent Machinery 16Speed Drill PressChicago Electric 130amp tig/90 ArcHobart 190 Mig spoolgun ready