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The first thing that I look at when contemplating a conversion is the Drill press that I am starting with. I look for a floor model that has a tall column attachment block to help the rigidity issue. Then I also look for one that has a broken table or possible damage to the upper column. This last project press was a craigslist find that had a broken table and bent rack. Neither of these where items that i would use in the end but it did allow me to get a solid 17" machine for $75.00 to start my project with. This drill press new is in the 500 to 950.00 range. As has been brought up many times if you were to pay new price for all the items for a conversion you would have 80% of a factory mill drill.
The other item that I look for but don't always find is the heavy quil lower bearing. These will allow the installation of the 5200 series angular contact bearing without modification. In this mill it had a 6203 series bearing which I was able to replace with a 5203 double row bearing without modification with the exception of the lock pin on the top of the upper bearing due to the quill being 3/16" lower then before. Even with the deep bearing block the bearing still hangs out about 3/16" below the bearing block, much more then that and I would have bored the bearing deeper in the block. These bearings new are about 40 to $50 but by watching Ebay I have been able to get new Fafnir bearings for under 15.00.
The double row angular contact bearings are the style bearings that the automotive industry has gone to for modular wheel bearings. This site has a quick description of angular contact bearings. http://www.astbearings.com/double-ro...r-contact.html
The next section will be about the the use of a MT2 to ER25 collet and how to setup the lock pin so it doesn't come out in the middle of milling something.
Attached are pictures that go with this portion of the thread.
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