I need a drill press that is accurate and I don't need anything too big. 8" travel would be fine, I just want something that works well but doesn't cost too much. Please post your real world experience and what model do you like?

Anyone used on of these: http://www.harborfreight.com/c...44506

 

"works well" and "accuracy" aren't the first things that come to mind with a $60 drill press from harbor freight. lol Wish i could help more, but the only cheap drill press i've ever used was a $100 craftsman one and it sucked. I guess it really depends what you're going to do with it.

 

Hmm I figured that might be the case. Nothing comes free. So what would I have to spend for accuracy? I don't need the king of the hill or a super production monster machine. I drill a alot of carbon fiber as you might guess.

 

I got one of the $150 Tradesman drill presses from Lowes for christmas. It'll work for what little I need it for but if I was shooting for accuracy I'd stay away. The biggest problem I see with it is too much slop in the spindle bearings. Its not been a problem so far on plastics or wood but when working with steel the spindle wiggles around like crazy. If you do get something similar to this at least plan on getting a nice chuck as the one it comes with sucks *****.

The one thing I would look for is how many speeds are available. One thing about the piece of crap I got is that it's 12 speeds. Though it sucks changing the belts around its nice to have the versatility to do different materials and different thickness.

Do you really need something with 8" of spindle travel? If so that is a pretty big drill press.

Check out Grainger, MSC, McMaster-Carr sites. I've personally used Wilton and Dayton drill presses and they're of much better quality than the craftsmans, Lowes,HF crap but they're still not top of the line.

Find out what kind of rpm range and max spindle travel your looking for and how much spindle to post depth you'll need and go from there. If you dont want to move belts around to change rpms then be prepeard to drop some pretty good $$$


Modified by KP at 6:34 PM 6/15/2005

 

I have that model. I actually have the one with the keyless chuck, but pretty much the same machine. I actually fabricated a flange for a Mustang throttle body for my intake manifold project using a hole saw and that drill press. It came out pretty good. I like it a lot for the regular day to day stuff, but if you want to fabricate something that needs to have holes drilled to specific depths or angles, stay away from this. It drills really well for what it is, but it's not an accurate machine as far as the tilt degrees and depth measurements are concerned.

Also, I just want to bring to your attention that the drill press doesn't have a 8" stroke. It's the table that moves 8" up and down. The stroke of the chuck itself is I think 2" or so.

Good luck!