Drill Press

D

DgrantD

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I am looking to buy a drill press, what are some recomndatons for a European made or US made (preferably). any sizes I have to have? Like what is the smallest one should go with?
 
D., I would go for a floor model for sure. Benchtop is ok, but I promise you will not have enough reach with the shorty. I started with a benchtop and found out real quick I need a floor standup model. The floor stand type is much safer for larger work,too.
 
Drilling holes in my knife handles, also since I currently have no grider it would be helpful in drilling around the blade shape. And mabye making my handles skeltonized/ kerambits, when I get good enough. Just a handy thing to have.
 
Sad to say but you are going to be hard pressed to find any American made drill press that is affordable. If you want quality, it is out there, but expect to pay a premium for it.

Most of the small inexpensive drill presses we use are made in Taiwan or China. If you look close at anything with Sears or Delta on it, it is the exact same machine that you get from Ryobi, Harbor Freight or Grizzly, all made overseas.

C Wilkins
 
Well thats to bad. Guess Ill be going with that, whatever happend to my country, sad:(
 
Look for an older, used machine of industrial quality. If it's running true it will last you the rest of your life.

My first drill press is from Maxion here in Germany and it cost over $1000, but what the heck, it's great! The only thing I'd suggest is try and get one with a toothed column so that you can adjust the height of the table with a crank rather than loosening the table and lifting it by hand. Once a heavy machine vice is on there that suckerr is heavy!

I dont thing you will need a floor model for knife work. We have one in my workshop and I only use it for building steel furniture where the pieces to drill are very large... over 24 inches etc. Like end pieces for tables and such.

Some of the Taiwan machines are good. They turn true but the castings and finish are sort of crap... a good Taiwan machine isnt all that cheep either. A real crap drill press is a waste of money, whatever it costs! Buy beer insteed.
 
Originally posted by DgrantD
Drilling holes in my knife handles, also since I currently have no grider it would be helpful in drilling around the blade shape. And mabye making my handles skeltonized/ kerambits, when I get good enough. Just a handy thing to have.
Click to expand...
Just wanted to make sure. Not to despair, many of the top makers here and elsewhere use the $50 imports, quite successfully. For drilling holes in fixed blade handles, and pre-drilling for profiling in your instance, they'll work just fine. On a folder it's critical to have perfectly right angle holes, but you can check and correct your table to make certain you're at a "360 degree right angle" (quill to table). Some of the imports come with keyless chucks.
Your/our country (USA) has a trade imbalance in competition with cheap labor, and the fact that the ultra rich are greedy, and don't want this situation corrected, works against American workers who are among the best in the world.
 
I have a chance to pick up an old Delta/Rockwell drill press, the head turns and is adjustible for length also. Its in ok shape, and runs good, it is 150 dollars. It takes at least a half inch chuck and has a craftsman motor, any one know anything about these?
 
You can probably get a new, floor standing, 12-16 speed drill press for close to the same from Harbor Freight. I bought a Taiwanese floor model over 20 years ago, and it's the only drill press I have. It still works as good as the day I bought it. I replaced the stock chuck with a keyless one from Grizzly, as the stocker was never true.
 
If you opt for one of the bigger ones as Mike is talking about, I'd opt for the floor length model as he suggests. I use my small bench one more than the big one. I always wished I'd gotten the floor standing model on my big one instead of the bench length. The only difference is the pole length, but I found it a nuisance to come up with the right height bench. Hope this isn't confusing. The $50 little ones only come in bench length to the best of my knowledge. Harbor freight offers free shippping on orders over $50.
 
Are radial arm drill presses useful in knife making? I can get one for the price of a regular floor model. Its 450 dollars, a rockwell, I havnet gone to see it, but the guy said its pretty big. Like 3 hp and around 500 pounds. I probably wont end up getting it, but are these useful?


Thanks


Grant
 
Again, you can get a floor model from HF for $150.00-$250.00, and they pay the freight.I don't know of anyone using a radial drill press.
 
FWIW, I just ordered a Delta DP250 drill press from Amazon for $170. They offered free (read: slow) shipping, but hey...free is free.

Just for giggles, I clicked on "overnight shipping" to see what the cost would be...$328 !!! Yikes..:(

Anyway, the DP250 and DP350 are variable speed and in my price range. I have an adjustable stand to put it on (from HF ~ $20) so that shouldn't be a snag. My "shop" is pretty small and I like it that way - this will be the most intrusive item thus far...

Basically, everything fit's within a 24" x 36" desk...:eek: :D :p
 
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