Drill press without a quill lock

The depth stop on my Ryobi drill press does lock the quill both in the starting position and end of travel but its kind of a hassle to use for repetitive passes with the Safe-t-planer. I often leave the quill all the way up and bring the table up so the work piece is just touching the planer - make a pass, then raise the table a quarter of a turn on the crank. Do a couple of passes side by side on a piece of scrap and you can measure the depth of the cut. I like to take very shallow passes with the Safe-t-planer, its seems happiest if it doesn't have to work too hard.

Edit - I just looked at the manual for yours and you have a different depth stop than mine. Mine is built into the handle that lowers the quill, yours seems to be along side and is some sort of linear thing. Your only option might be raising the table.

 

I have one of the original safety planers.....you are going to want to keep two hands on your work if you don't want to have screwed up cutter marks in your wood. In fact it's not the safest thing to use if you ask me, especially if the work isn't long. I'd consider getting a 14" drill press with more features and save for a planer.


I'd consider a surfacing router bit in a router planer jig too. That way your hands are on the router, not the work.

 

Here is a picture of my little Ryobi drill press - the depth stop is the knurled part of the crank.

 

My drill press has a similar linear depth stop but with a pair of stops for both a min and max limit. But you should be able to just tighten the single limit all the way and raise the table as Freeman suggests?

The safe-t planet isn’t the most precise tool by any means, but I find it handy for things like thicknessing Tele/Strat headstocks.

 

It sounds like you need to rebuild a router planer jig out of different materials or a different design. Headstock thicknessing can be accomplished with a hand plane, Occ. spindle sanding against a fence, band saw and fence, hand saw and abrasive, router planer jig, or even a router propped up on a couple rails with a longer base.

Safety planers were invented a long time after guitars were being made. I'd be concerned with the drill press table flexing under load. Those cheap ones aren't cast iron.


If you are planing on thicknessing a tilt back peghead on a safety planer, you may want to stick the surface to a longer and heavier board as trying to do it by hand may result in a less than satisfactory result due to tipping.

 

Maybe you could make an upside down U-shape router base. Clamp the neck to a flat bench and then route.

 

You could do it on a jointer or router table. On the router table, assuming it is a decent one, you can set up your fence so that it leaves an untouched area ( looks like sled skies) on each side of the neck. Then trim the unrouted section off using a small plane or whatever pleases you until they are level with the routed portion.

If you use the safety planer, I'd put a long bed on the drill press table to support the neck from front to back.

 

No. I made a quick sketch to illustrate what I mean. Green moves, red is stationary:


I have used this setup to thin a headstock. If you lift the neck at the nut end of of the workbench you can also use it to taper the back of the neck.

 

I think your drill press was designed by an "engineer" who never used a drill press.

Since you are determined to use it and the "safety planer" (an oxymoron, IIRC), and you require a quill lock, use your owners manual to figure out how to remove the quill, and then drill and tap a hole in left hand side of the quill housing so you can screw in a 5/16 bolt with a handle on it.

Quill lock added .

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Honestly, using a Safe-t-planer as I showed in my picture works very well for thicknessing things like necks and head plates. I have absolutely no problem adjusting the table up and down as required, I take very thin passes with the planer each time, I put the piece of MDF on the table as shown, I level the table and square the quill before I start. As with any mechanical wood cutting device it has its risks - I respect those and feel that it is safe when used with care.

I used to do the neck thicknessing by hand with a plane, this works much better and leaves me with a flat straight back line - I can't imagine how I would rig up a router to do the same thing

 

I do something very similar for thinning and angling head stocks with my router setup.

A quick process and very clean results .


edit: I've learned that it's important to plan out the sequence of machining steps (or hand-work) on a neck to take advantage of square or flat surfaces; make them work to your advantage before you turn them into a hard to clamp rounded shape .

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Do you ever put in a long scrap piece of wood in front and back of the piece you are planing? Sometimes that helps as the scrap takes the snipe, leaving the part in the middle pretty straight.

 

Yes. I normally stagger them so both front and rear are under the knives at the same time.

 

Get a couple of strong bungee cords and bungee the handle at the bottom of the throw.