Cleaning and Polishing the Column: Craftsman King-Seeley 103.23141 Drill Press Restoration, Pt. 19

The final piece to clean up and prep for the long-awaited reassembly is the column.

How do you polish the column? I had some ideas on how to clean it up, mainly ones I had seen on other drill press restorations. The concept is not mine, I just borrowed it. And it worked great.

First I used some Rustoleum Rust Remover spray on rust remover on the column. There was some light corrosion and wanted to get it all off chemically rather than try to steel wool/grind/sand it off. This stuff worked well. It's almost a gel, so it stays put, which is a good thing for a drill press column. I didn't get any shots of that process - I just laid the column over my basement sink and treated it one half at a time.

Now the fun starts!

The concept is to rotate the column on its long axis (hee hee axis) in order to use abrasives to polish it.

I attached two sets of 2 inch (about 50mm) diameter casters to plywood boards. The casters are spaced about 3/4 of an inch (maybe 18mm) apart. I just held them up to the column and eyeballed what I thought would be a good distance.

I figured the base should be fairly large so it wouldn't tip over. You can also see I just used 2 screws on each caster to hold it to the base - they were plenty sturdy.

Next we need a plug to fit into the end of the column to serve as a place to connect a motor drive. The motor drive in this instance will be a hand drill.

I just measured the diameter of the column and cut a plywood circle to fit. I made it a bit larger, then filed it down to a sort of cork tapered shape on the sides so it will plug into the column. There's a bolt (5/16 of an inch) and a nut holding it on. That will be our drive.

Fit the plug/drive into one end of the column. My first plug was too small, it slid down into the column! Then I got the idea of a cork taper. Since it's plywood, it was soft enough that I could drive it down solidly into the column with a hammer.

Yes, the bison helped oversee the operation.

Now we lay it out on the floor of The Dungeon. It actually looks like it's going to work. Amazing.

You can see the column is pretty clean after the de-rusting. Now we can hopefully just polish it up.

Attach my trusty Ridgid 'Diablo' cordless drill press to the drive bolt, squeeze the trigger and...holy smokes, it works!

The drill has high and low speed ranges; the low range is for more torque and that's where I had it.

Note that I used a luthier's clamp to hold the trigger at the speed I wanted.

In practice, the column wanted to gradually move lengthwise off the rollers. I just stuck a cardboard box at the far end so it couldn't move.  The spacing of the rollers and their bases was perfect - the whole thing ran very smoothly.

I used 60 grit sandpaper, then 100, 150, 220, 320 and finally 400 grit to polish the column.

The picture is a bit staged just to show how it works - I needed one hand free to operate the camera! In practice I took a whole sheet and held it onto the column with both hands, applying a bit of pressure. The drill has plenty of power to drive the column. I chose this model specifically because it had the most torque of any drill in its class. This is where it pays off.

After the sandpaper, I polished it up with Mother's Mag & Aluminum polish. I've had that jar for years and it finally ran out. A little goes a long way.

And yes, I bought a new jar.

The final step was to spray the polished column with some corrosion inhibitor. I usually use Boeshield T-9 but it's expensive so I'm trying this WD-40 Corrosion Inhibitor on this project.

Next? Reassemble the press!

The complete restoration saga

Part 1 - Beginning

Part 2 - Electrolysis to Remove Rust

Part 3 - Grinding to Remove Rust

Part 4 - Leveling Base Table

Part 5 - Recreating Model Number Label

Part 6 - Refinishing Base

Part 7 - Removing Motor

Part 8 - Motor Disassembly

Part 9 - Motor Bearing Replacement

Part 10 - Start Capacitor and Motor Reassembly

Part 11 - Removing Threaded Jacobs Chuck

Part 12 - Spindle Removal

Part 13 - Quill Disassembly

Part 14 - New Quill and Spindle Bearings

Part 15 - Engine Turned Aluminum Trim Proof of Concept

Part 16 - Engine Turned Aluminum Trim

Part 17 - Cleaning and Polishing Hardware

Part 18 - Jacobs 633C Drill Chuck Restoration

Part 19 - Cleaning and Polishing Column

Part 20 - Reassembly Begins

Part 21 - Restoration Completed