As far back as the 1930s, and continuing until the 1980s, Ohio State University had an aluminum foundry and machine shop for the industrial engineering and systems engineering classes. Part of the systems engineering class was the building of benchtop drill presses. The belt guard casting has a prominent "OSU" marking and the head casting is marked "OSU INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING". These drill presses were produced as class projects and were not sold commercially.

Information Sources

• Correspondent Bob Poole alerted us to these drill presses based on an eBay listing and an email conversation with the seller.
• Correspondent Bob Berkemer relayed the following.

  Saw the post on the red OSU drill press and I have one along with the bench top grinder that we all made in the classes. I built mine in the late 60's as part of a two sequence course in Systems engineering which were run by Professors Kibby and Moore. At this time in engineering education they were still having students get some experiences on machines and processes used in industry so that they would better understand the processes they were designing for or managing. The lab class part of the courses had students shifting every class to a different process machine such as lathe, gang drill, centerless grinder, arc welding or foundry casting. It was blast for us hands on students. We manufactured every part on the drill press and bench grinder. At the end of the course there were enough drill presses and grinders for every student which were assigned by a lottery and we had a materials cost that we had to pay. I still have mine and use it for light duty. As I recall, outside the systems engineering labs there were examples of past drill presses made by students as far back as the 1930's and every drill press had a serial number which we could use if we ever needed to replace a part! I'm sure that is all gone now, sadly.