The satisfaction of mending tools

A few weeks ago I fixed my old (well over 20 years), but fairly powerful drill. I'd shortened the power cord a couple of times but the outer insulation was failing all over the place. Sadly, my first multi-cutter motor had burnt out (it has suffered a lot when I was removing the diesel fuel tanks) so I used that cable to renew the drill :-)

Also I've been frustrated for about a year by a broken drill press. The platform on which the item to be drilled rests had snapped off.

I've been looking for a replacement for ages, but with no luck. Then when ordering something else (to reinforce our very creaky stairs at home) I found I could buy some large section angle iron "100mm x 75mm x 8mm Mild Steel Angle Iron Hot Rolled" from Metals4U to a custom length, so 180mm cost me £7.87 (plus a small share share of £6 delivery).

I've made some progress on fitting it.

The trickiest bit was cutting away around the hole so that it fits on the flange, anyway the dremmel did it, even if a bit messy.

The grinder is currently at the boat, once I get that I can cut away parts of the platform and bolt it onto the angle iron. Going to be very useful to have this fixed for some of the projects coming up.