Drill Press T-track Adapter

All sorts of accessories fit in T-tracks these days, but the slots in my old Craftsman drill press are much larger than today's typical T-track. So I decided to 3D print an adapter that would allow T-track accessories to fit in the drill press table.

It is just a little part that holds the bolt so that the end always runs across the drill press slot and therefore touches both sides when tightened without twisting and coming out of the slot. The 3D printed part itself is under no strain other than holding the bolt steady.

The OpenSCAD and STL files are on thingiverse.

Here's all the parts of a hold down, plus my 3D printed adapter:

They go together like this:

The bottom of the bolt sits inside the adapter in a hole that fits it precisely:

The top of the "tee" on the bolt peeks through the 3D printed part, so the stress is entirely on the bolt when tightened:

And here is an example of it holding down a piece of 2x4:

I print this part upside down with supports so the flanges on either side won't sag.

Note: I dug up the dimensions of the slots on the drill press by taking a Play-Doh impression of a slot opening, sticking a ruler across the impression, and photographing it:

I then scaled the DPI of the image to match the ruler and was able to pick off dimensions in gimp. A couple of test prints got the correct dimensions dialed in, then it was time for the t-bolt. Since it is nice and flat, I used my scanner to get the image of the "tee" and fiddled with the OpenSCAD till the model I made matched the scanned image.

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