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Manufacturer of a hand crank drill press?

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Only markings I can see are C2 on the main frame, C21 on the gear lever arm and C28 on the platform. Any help would be appreciated.

That would be a C2C21C28 Drill Press. 

 

All jokes aside, welcome to the forum. If you put your profile in your header most people will at least be willing to help in person, if they're local. 

No pictures? We like photos. Otherwise, we are just guessing here. And you did not even describe the drill press, which makes us guess even harder. 

Check out the "Read This First" tab in order to maximize your enjoyment and benefit of this site. Remember, we are people, not faceless avatars, and so enjoy adding to our community, but we are NOT ChatGPT or something similar. We are not a search engine, but a community of blacksmiths who like banging on metal and sharing some laughs. 

Hand crank drill presses, like many tools, were commonly sold without names stamped into them. Vices were similar, they could be had from a catalogue and stamping did not make much sense. So, it will be difficult to know if yours is a name brand - but pictures could help identify if it is missing pieces or something similar. 

Thanks for the one picture. Did you read my previous reply? 
what are you wanting to know about it? It is a hand powered drill press. Use it in good health. 
 

we try to be friendly here; welcome to the forum - make a lunch and a cold drink and read the wealth of knowledge in these posts- and settle in, it will take a while to read it all!

That's a pretty standard basic post drill with the escapement quill advance mechanism. Not bottom of the type but far from the fanciest. Everything appears to be there from here, you even have the chuck wrench. Do you have the appropriate drill bits?

Put a DROP or two on the bearings and work it gently before you put it to work. 

Like leg vises these were common before electricity was common. They're robust and simple, easy to repair with minimal tools. Repair and replacement parts were in virtually all mail order catalogs. 

If you want some really interesting reading check out a Sears catalog from the turn of the last century, almost anything was available from sewing supplies to automobiles, house kits, pharmaceuticals and rain making machinery. 

Heck, my great Uncle and Aunt lived in a Sears kit house he built in the 1940s. Pretty nice for a 2 bdrm house but exactly the same as every other house within about 4 blocks. The only differences were in trim, entryways and color.

Frosty The Lucky.

  • Author

Actually just wanting to know if anyone knows the manufacturer?

I bought my grandparents house 30 years ago, its been setting in the corner of the shop. Just to piece together information about it

You’re unlikely to find the specific manufacturer, since there is no name stamped or cast into it. Frosty’s suggestion of looking in the sears catalogues (I.e. doing the research) is a good one: you can also check other historical tool catalogues for visual matches. It may match up to several. It’s a a bit like trying to estimate who made a wrench without a name….

  • Author

Thanks for the information...I'll continue researching it

  • Author

Excellence suggestion on the old Sear catalogs. Saw a couple close from the teens and 20s. Wil E coyote ACME

  • Author

20251216_121505_resized_1.thumb.jpg.44f6d13599dde77294d263291a7ff3fa.jpg20251216_121312_resized_1.thumb.jpg.0b45e30b6d605c6565bf7491f07287cd.jpgAlso saw this Columbian post leg vise. Wonder if he bought them as part of a set.

The mounting bolt plate is upside down, possibly why someone drove the wedge like things on each side of the U bolt. 

This isn't necessarily a mistake, it might just be what he had to do to mount it where it needed to go. Most leg vises you find don't have the original bolt plate and have some aardvark engineered thing. Those brackets are easily lost and once removed from a vise tend to look like random junk to someone cleaning out grandpaw's old shed.

That you have one is excellent. Just don't think it actually IS the original. Those brackets usually carry the only maker's mark you ever see and it was common practice to order brackets with the store's name and logo on them. Many years ago I saw a new leg vise with Mc Kay's Hardware cast proud on the bracket. 

Columbian is probably the most counterfeited big name you see on things like leg vises, blowers, forges, etc.

Frosty The Lucky.

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