Drill Press Recommendation

Damien · 23-11-2006, 12:03 PM

My sister and I are going to get my Old Boy a Pedestal Drill Press for his 50th birthday and I was just wondering if anybody here might suggest a brand or model they would recommend? Or, more importantly, a brand they would NOT recommend.

We're probably looking at spending around the $300 mark with a little room to go up to $400 if I can justify the extra dosh. It's going to be used for just about everything, but it's only for a home garage, so it's not like it's going to be put to extreme working conditions or anything, just need something reliable with good, useful features.

shane3 · 24-11-2006, 10:17 AM

If you are serious about a GOOD pedestal drill go to some place like alltools or total tools, they deal with industrial strength tools as Bunning’s is more the weekend hacker/hobbyist, what you need is a "bed" that can rotate from horizontal (90o to the drill) to 90o vertical (in line with the drill) and a good vice that can be bolted to the bed, I would go for some thing like this http://www.justtools.com.au/prod186.htm if I had more space to put it, as you can see the "bed" can be turned up to 90oto the left or the right as well as having a decent chuck (the part that holds the drills), when you look at a pedestal drill hold onto the chuck and see how much slop it has in regards to movement, back and forth as well as up and down, no point trying to drill a accurate hole if the drill bit keeps moving around on you.

Damien · 24-11-2006, 02:52 PM

Thanks shane3, some good points there. My Old Boy is a Fitter & Turner by trade but that was many, many years ago, he will mainly use the drill press for household repairs and what not. He's always just used a hand drill for most things but after helping him with some metalwork the other day he mentioned the job would have been so much easier with a drill press, which it would have been.

Having read some interesting build articles here I thought there'd be plenty of suggestions regarding a drill press. Looks like I'll pop into Toolies and check out the selection. Looks like the $400 will be money well spent. Cheers again.