I picked up the Jet 17" free standing drill press earlier this year (for $999), as I had the same problem with my older Wen press. I couldn't drill a blank in a single pass, as the stroke was only 2.5". The Jet press has a 5" stroke, so I can easily drill blanks in a single pass. I'm working on getting a jig table set up so I can simply bolt on my pen vise, which itself will be bolted to a piece of MDF, and have it properly centered and leveled and all that. I then simply need to center the table rotation, which should make it easier to drill on the press.
I also use a drill press to drill my blanks. About 6 years ago I had a can of WD-40 Electrical Contact Cleaner and used it to spray on my drill bit and into the blank. The cleaner comes out as a liquid and quickly flashes and cools off the drill bit and the inside of the blank. It has worked flawlessly for all these years for me. It is CFC free do it does not effect the atmosphere. I'm sure almost any Electrical Contact Cleaner will work but the WD-40 I use I found to be very reasonably priced. It does not affect the blank or drill bit in any way that I have found.
I love it that you have counted how many blanks you can drill using this. It would take me so long to use up a can that I would lose count. Makes me wonder how many pens you make in a year.
i have a similar shop and what i use is a 12v air compressor/tyre inflator. however i was thinking about a diy solution like this one:
Thanks for the heads up. I felt like if could be used on electrical contacts it would be pretty tame material. I read the SDS for it and was very surprised it was flammable. A number of times I have used it in distribution panels where the power was removed from the contactor but power (480V) still on in the panel. Sounds like this could be a miss application of this product in an electrical environment where sparks might occur as a contactor breaks.
I did not know Delta made cheap drill presses. I have aDelta tabletop also and it is reliable and solid piece of tooling. There is a spring return on the quill to return the handle to the starting position. Maybe your is broke. The table has a lock on it that locks it in position after you find the height you need. I do not drill blanks on the drill press, I use the lathe. But it is so easy to adjust for a short drill distance and has been talked about many times here. Just add a spacer block under the blank as you slowly allow the bit to return to starting position. You want to keep the bit engaged in the hole as much as you can to keep the hole lined up. If you are using a device to hold the blank steady then add the spacer under the device.
It is a 20 year old Delta 11-990 that I bought used for $cheap in early 2020. That's what I meant by "cheap." Everything works, including the spring return, but the quill depth isn't long enough to drill a pen blank without raising the table to lower the drill bit into the hole. The table mechanism has a clamping screw that clamps the table to the post. The table itself has a crank that slowly raises or lowers the table. I like the ease and precision of the crank, which is a vast improvement over my previous drill press. While the clamping screw is loose, the table wants to swing left and right, which can be an issue if the drill bit is inside the pen blank. The real issue is that it takes several turns of the crank to get the drill bit out of the pen blank to cool - too slow to be effective.
