Aligning a drill press

Delta uses a simple steel pin inserted in the chuck and squared left to right and front to back.

tie a plumb bob on a drill bit or pin in the chuck.

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

I hope that this post will solve your problem
http://lumberjocks.com/topics/446

And, if you are already around, have a look at those posts
http://lumberjocks.com/topics/952
http://lumberjocks.com/topics/1196

Regards
niki

realign it how? As you are referencing a single point unless the table tilts it doesn’t matter in terms of a little to the left or right

Those are great posts Nikki, Love your ideas.

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

Thanks for the great ideas, Niki, those should help quite a bit, but I’ll need to figure out how to make it work with my drill press. My drill press is a floor model so I wouldn’t be able to clamp a straight edge to the base to help with alignment.

To clarify my problem, I’ve started working on a new workbench and I needed to cut some mortises in a 4×4 using a forstner bit, since I don’t own a good set of mortise chisels. I ran into a lot of problems when I was trying to cut left to right since my alignment was so wacky. Since I only have about 3 inches of travel in my press, I had to flip the stock over to complete the process and I had to realign the drill press.

For lack of a better way, transfer your layout around the post with a square.

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

You might consider doing you mortise with a router and a jig. Finish fine tuning by hand with a chisel.
http://www.woodworkersguide.com/2008/03/03/a-simple-plunge-router-mortising-jig/