- Joined
- May 2, 2014
- Messages
- 217
Over the years, I have bought many brands of new drill presses, both bench mount and floor model.
A test that I performed before ever buying the machines is to check for quill shake. I would wind the quill almost all the way down and grab the end and shake it back and forth. Don't bottom it out on the rack because it might cock to one side and you will get a false feel.
Sometimes I would go down a row of machines checking each one. It is startling how much they can vary from machine to machine, in the same display in the same store.
Higher end machines have a split headstock, so you can tighten up the quill a bit. Cheap machines don't have that. I can remember taking an $89 bench drill press fully apart and chucking the headstock up in my lathe to bore it for a bronze sleeve. That was a good repair but took quite a while to set the casting properly in the 4 jaw chuck.
Buying an imported drill press is a crap shoot. Might as well buy the best of the litter.
A test that I performed before ever buying the machines is to check for quill shake. I would wind the quill almost all the way down and grab the end and shake it back and forth. Don't bottom it out on the rack because it might cock to one side and you will get a false feel.
Sometimes I would go down a row of machines checking each one. It is startling how much they can vary from machine to machine, in the same display in the same store.
Higher end machines have a split headstock, so you can tighten up the quill a bit. Cheap machines don't have that. I can remember taking an $89 bench drill press fully apart and chucking the headstock up in my lathe to bore it for a bronze sleeve. That was a good repair but took quite a while to set the casting properly in the 4 jaw chuck.
Buying an imported drill press is a crap shoot. Might as well buy the best of the litter.