I found this homemade drill press in a garage I'm cleaning out. It was too dim to take a pic. I'll get some tomorrow. At first I couldn't believe someone would put this much effort into a drill press.     I punched in  - home made drill press connecting rods - and I found this ad.

http://www.vintageprojects.com/power-tools/drill-press-auto.pdf

Love the photo.  Shirt and tie, ready to go.

Popular Mechanics found all kinds of uses for automotive connecting rods and pipe fittings.  Drill presses, lathes, grinders, and so on.  I believe the link you included is of a Popular Mechanics design.  It's a sensible way to get something that's machined to precise dimensions.

Looking for pictures, if it follows you home.

Pics.

Amazing how these days everything has to be so precise in alignment so the belt runs true. Years ago the belts were a piece of round leather cord, cut to length and connected by pig rings. They could run in any direction and worked great, like on this old drill press. I worked on some sewing machines in the 70s for a seed and grain company. Those old machines used the leather belts and never had trouble. I added a spring loaded idler to them to keep the stretch out of the belts. About every 2 months I would cut the ends off the belts and reconnect them, each leather belt would last right at a year with full time use on those sewing machines.

About 25 or so years ago I had a chance to buy a complete work shop that included drill press , lathes , mill , planer and a bunch of other machines all run buy a belt and pulley system in the ceiling. It was quite the set up , but I didn't have room for it in my garage. I'm not sure what too do with this drill press. Scrap it or put it on CL as an art piece.

Don't scrap it, clean it up a little and see if a local museum would want it.

Hi Ken,
  Send a picture to the Curtiss Museum.  I donated some vintage wrenches to them several years ago.  They use a lot of vintage tools in their restoration shop but also have some on display in the museum.
https://glennhcurtissmuseum.org/