Aligning my Grandfather’s old drill press

[JHZR2]

I inherited my Grandfather’s old drill press when he passed some years back. He built grandfather clocks and furniture. I remember doing projects with him and always using it.

Now I need to cut threads for a repair, and want a tight hole. I started to check straightness, and the platform, to my disbelief was crooked.

The unit is set up like this:

So I started to try to figure out how to make what straight relative to what. Thing is, I can’t it seems.

The floor and stand is slightly off. But the platform is way off.

When I use proper right angles against the chuck, the platform is still crooked. That’s what confuses me.

There’s a protractor underneath. Not that I trust it.

I think the key is that the platform is properly perpendicular to the chuck, right? And then the work piece has to be similarly so.

Not 100% sure how I do that when everything is crooked from the floor on up!

Recommendations on how to set this up to be properly square???

Thanks!

 

[spasm3]

You can't loosen and move the platform left to right to level ? Front to back may be the hardest , unless you can somehow adjust the head.

 

[mk378]

Chuck a straight rod in the chuck then check perpendicular to the table with a square.
Overall level with the Earth does not matter as long as the spinde and table are perpendicular.