An acquaintance of mine is going through some tough times, and was downsizing some of his stuff, so I wound up buying his drill press from him.  Here’s the first photo I took when I got it into my garage:

It’s a Craftsman 150 Drill press with the Vari-Slo attachment — it’s a continuously variable speed control that utilizes a reeves drive to alter spindle speed.  It’s a neat piece of kit, and is apparently a fairly rare attachment.  The whole thing was made in the early 1960s, by King-Seeley Corporation (a division of General Motors) in Michigan. Continue reading →

My Craftsman table saw has a lovely engine turned aluminium front panel on it, but after 50+ years, it was looking a bit dingy:

I went through the internet, scouring it to find out how to clean the finish, after I discovered that standard cleaning methods just totally wiped out the engine turning.  It’s so shallowly done, that it doesn’t stand up to much of anything.  I finally figured out a way to get it much brighter and cleaner than it was:

Although it’s still a bit “foggy” compared to new, and there’s some oxidization still present, I think I got the bulk of the dirt and the schmutz off, and got a good “three foot” polish on it.  You’ll see some foulups on the top from some ill advised cleaning methods.  Here’s how I did it… Continue reading →

I recently purchased a table saw — a 1950s Craftsman, made by Emerson Electric.

Here it was as advertised on Craigslist:

I acquired it for a princely $40! I loaded it up into the truck and hauled it on home Continue reading →