Drill Press, How much to get and how much to spend?

[Cavetoad]

Ok so I am getting my shop put together and the last large piece, for now, is a drill press. I am really struggling with what direction to go here. I am currently looking hard at 2 models from Grizzly. The 34" radial head floor model and the 20" fixed head floor press. They both have different advantages and disadvantages and I'm not sure how to make up my mind.

The Radial has a 34" swing which would be handy for getting large pieces into and has much nice price at about $375 delivered. My worry with it is stability and keeping the head and table perpendicular, there are a lot of round parts to move and twist. It also has a very small table but that can be fixed with jigs.

Then there is the 20" floor press, I looked at a 17" but for only $100 difference I would have to go for the 20". Best I can tell it is built like a tank and other than tipping it over there is pretty much no way you could ever damage it while doing any kind of wood working. The big advantage is that along with being pretty much indestructible it also would be heavy enough for metal work and will accept mortising attachments and standard mill chucks for using as a milling machine. Down side it the price tag, $800 delivered, still not terrible but a lot more than $375.

The Mrs says get the big one if I will never have to by another later on which in some ways makes an even tougher choice . They never say that.

Does anyone have any experience with either of these presses. I am leaning to the 20" but the $400 difference would pay for other toys so I would love to hear what others have to say.

 

[Henry W]

I can't comment directly - as either of those is way bigger than I have every needed. Whenever I have seen a radial DP I wonder about exactly the same things you mentioned - keeping alignment. If I want crooked holes I can drill those by hand all day long:gar-Bi.

Seriously though - thinking long term is the right idea. Knowing what you want/need in the long term is the question you have asked - and I can't answer.

Henry

 

[Mike Davis]

I bought a used Craftsman drill press for less than $100 and it does everything I need. I always thought a radial would be nice, but I haven't really needed one in the last forty years. Of course tomorrow I WILL need one...

I would take a serious look at my work and what i intend to do, chances are you could do well with a smaller drill press and some really high quality bits.

 

[Canuck]

One more consideration you may want to look at is the depth of hole you plan on drilling.

I opted for the Steel City 17" because of the 6" quill stroke. This one feature has proven to be very good for when drilling things like pen blanks. Also I considered the overall size of the table (14" x 14").

Wayne

 

[Mark Gottesman]

I bet you could use the Wixey angle gauge to set your radial drill press in a heartbeat and it has a lot of other shop uses. Can't help you with the other questions. I'm using a cheapo Craftsman and a vintage tabletop unit. Figure out what you want to build.

 

[Cavetoad]

Thanks for all the suggestions and input. I think Mark is right about the Wixey angle tool. I have one and it has never failed me when it came to getting things right. I will have to take a look at the Steel City, longer quill travel is one of the things I liked about the 20". Wife is still pushing for the 20" so I can never say I didn't get the most I could but I am really wanting to get the best for the money not spend the most money.

 

[Hmerkle]

I bought a CHEAP radial. So my story starts out unfair...
But that was a POS start to finish -
Short quill, top heavy (even bolted down I felt like it was going to tip over), undersized motor, undersized chuck.... on and on.)
so let's say you put some of this to bed - the cheaper Grizzly will do things you want it to do...
I suggest - once in a while... how often do you need that reach?
how often do you need holes drilled on a radius?

Now how often are you going to use a regular drill press and have a table and jigs set-up for it to help you with you job? I suggest EVERY DAY!


As Canuck (Wayne) put it - there are features you (I belive) absolutely need.
1. quill depth (as long as you can get) it always seems like you are 1/2 short!
2. quill stop (I bought a Delta with good reviews on the depth stop)
3. Tilting table (boy do I miss mine on this delta!!!)
4. rotating table (I had one on my $100 buffalo floor standing DP) that is another thing I REALLY miss!!
5. Variable speed - I have it on the delta and was offered (I will give you this DP) three or four years ago and turned it down because you have to change belts! I know it's not a big deal, but when you can turn a knob - WOW that make belt changing seem like a sanding project!

This is just my two cents - as Mike said what do you intend to do with it? Does it have the features to suit that? and your best guess for future-work!

 

[Woodman2k]

Dan,
I can't argue with any of the pointspresented but would like to add that if you plan on mortising forget about the accessorie mortisers and buy a $ 200 dedicated mortiser.Setting up a drill press and the lack of leverage on anything but balsa wood is aggravating. The drill press quill handles are too short to plunge into most hardwoods. Buy a used drill press or the steel city and save your money for the add on goodies. I just bought a Buffalo 18 for $300 and they don't make them like that anymore. 450 lb drill press will be with me forever.
Greg

 

[batk30msu]

klingspor carries the shop fox radial drill press which is exactly the same as the grizzly. It might be worth the trip to put your hands on the mechanisms for re-aligning everything.

 

[zapdafish]

what do you plan on doing? except for my brief foray into pen turning, my drill press remains untouched

 

[SubGuy]

I'm going to go with this:
http://www.cpopowermatic.com/powerm...pd.html?start=1&cgid=powermatic-drill-presses

It's a VS. I hate changing belts or pulleys. I hate underpowered tools. I hate flex in parts. I hate worrying about something breaking. I like simple alignment and accurate adjustments. This has it all. It's on my wish list. Might be awhile.

 

[Hmerkle]

I'm going to go with this:
http://www.cpopowermatic.com/powerm...pd.html?start=1&cgid=powermatic-drill-presses

It's a VS. I hate changing belts or pulleys. I hate underpowered tools. I hate flex in parts. I hate worrying about something breaking. I like simple alignment and accurate adjustments. This has it all. It's on my wish list. Might be awhile.

But Zack - it's baby poop yellow! I don't get it! :rotflm:

 

[merrill77]

Have you used one? The guy at Woodcraft said they cant wait to sell their last one...they hate it. Says it is very loud.

 

[Cavetoad]

I am planning on mostly doing furniture and game sets. I agree that it would be better to get a dedicated mortising machine for furniture if for nothing more than not having to change equipment so often. One of the things that worried me about the radial is that it looks to be very top heavy. I might have to make the trip to Raleigh to look at the one they have there, it is really tough to buy since being here in Fayetteville there isn't anywhere in town that has anything you can put your hands on first. I hate spending the money with only seeing things on line or in catalogs.

 

[Acelectric]

The only advice I can give you. The one time I was debating on making a tool purchase and my wife said buy it, I didn't. Been regretting it ever since.....

Edit:
It's a drill press, not a milling machine. Most of what having a radial head can do can be accomplished with a tilting drill press table. Length of stroke would be the most important thing in my experience. My drill press is decent but for making pens a longer stroke would be nice.

 

[ehpoole]

My thoughts...

Like several others, I opted for the 17" Steel City drill press because of the 6" quill stroke, which is often much more valuable than the difference between 17" and 20" or 34" (etc.) because it means you can drill a deep hole in one smooth motion (nor do you have to continually adjust the table for optimal height). The SC drill press was the first wood working/hobbyist oriented drill press to offer 6" in a good many years, which made it very popular at the time. If your uses are like most, you will probably call upon this capability more often than the added reach. Nowadays you have more choices available with respect to extended quill strokes.

(Note: With extended quill strokes the runout will worsen when you extend the quill more than a few inches. However, by this point you should have a hole well established which will guide the bit and reduce the effective runout. To understand why runout worsens with extension you'd need to understand how quills and arbors are constructed -- it isn't a design flaw but a compromise to get the added extension.)

As for the differences in reach between 17", 20" and 34", only you really know how much this will come into play in your woodworking. In my own experience the small handful of times that I could have used more reach the item I was drilling into was a tabletop, countertop, or the like. Overlooking that such a thing is too awkward to place on a drill press in the first place, even if I had the reach I'd have to stand on the workpiece (toppling the drill press in the process) just to reach the quill handle. These really awkward tasks are really best handled by a handheld drill any how and if accuracy is critical then you can first drill a matching guide block on the drill press that will ensure you drill a perfectly straight hole with your handheld drill.

As for using a drill press for mortising or milling, any drill press is poorly (very poorly) suited to either of these tasks. When milling you place a lot of lateral stresses on the chuck and arbor which, rather than the normal compressive force, which causes the #2 Morse Taper to frequently fall loose (it is held in place by friction and electrostatic attraction. Milling is also likely to damage the arbor bearings and increase runout of the quill assembly over the long haul due to the increased lateral forces. When trying to use a drill press for mortising you tend to need much more compressive force than the quill handle is designed to deliver for normal drilling operations -- a real mortiser will have a much longer quill handle and a much more favorable gearing ratio for delivering this force during mortising. There are very few people who actually enjoy those mortiser attachments for their DP and they mostly end up collecting dust in a drawer... and the few who say they do enjoy them have likely never used an actual mortiser as their opinion would very likely change afterwards (plus you lose the use of the DP as a DP when a mortising kit is mounted).

As for radial drill presses, they are really intended as a secondary drill press for most shops. It is the drill press you use pretty much only when your regular drill press can not get the job done or would require altering its setup from that used for drilling 90deg holes (like tilting the table). They generally are not meant to be as accurate as a standard drill press, but they are meant to be very flexible (such as rotating the head rather than the workpiece). If you need the radial drill press for the odd jobs then you should also plan on needing a regular drill press to use for the everyday type jobs (i.e. buy both).

PS -- $375 sounds awfully cheap if this is for a new drill press in the 17-20" range. A good 17" drill press (with 3/4HP motor) alone should set you back $500-650 new and a 20" (with 1HP+ motor) around $800-1200 new. I would be a little concerned as to what compromises have been made to achieve this price point if this for new. If this is the used price then you may well be fine.

 

[toolferone]

Having owned both, I would not bother with radial. I find the longer quill to be one of the most important features! I mirror everybody else on having a dedicated mortiser and not using the dp for milling.

 

[KenOfCary]

As mentioned quill stroke is an important consideration. One of the things I looked for in my floor standing drill press was a longer stroke than the benchtop version I was replacing as it had come up short several times. I ended with a Delta w/4" stroke that I found on Craigslist.

 

[Len]

All this talk about 17" and 20" drill presses is making my 9" bench top Delta jealous!

 

[DaveD]

Not sure what you mean by being heavy enough to do metal work but just about any run of the mill drill press will drill 1/4" plate steel. My Craftsman with its skinny little 1/4" wide drive belt can drill 1/2" holes in steel without a problem and without any pilot holes.

The vast majority of drill presses have a morse taper shank on them. Morse taper shanks are not made to take side loading like a milling machine. The chuck/collet has a tendency to come loose when side loaded. Using things like adjustable x/y tables or sanding drums on a drill press is just a disaster waiting to happen. Particularly the x/y table because you loose the feel of how much side pressure you are exerting.