Thread: Drill Press Mobile Base

Not sure about mobile bases, but I have mine on a table bench. No reason why you couldn't add wheels to a table of some sort, but I would have lockable.

My table is from steel 35mm square tubing and marine ply, with extra cross members under the drill itself. Whatever you do, ensure it is stong and stable. Not sure about your drill, but mine weighs a tonne and it took 2 strong adults to lift it into place and is not going anywhere.

Not sure if this will help, but maybe it will give you an idea.

Cheers

It would not be difficult to put it on a mobile base, but it would probably be fairly unstable. Floor DP's are top heavy, so you would want to bolt it to the base and make the base substantially wider than the foot of the DP. I would make it 6 - 10 inches wider on each side of the base.

Dan

I built a box on castors with two drawers, about 500x500x500. It work fine.

Easy job unless you want it to look something like house furniture........

I personally think it would be way top heavy to wheel around, unless the base is bloody heavy.

Get some hospital bed wheels though, they are great in my factory for trolleys i have, and they have the stoppers on them as well. Glide around the floor as soft as those Magpies are playing at the moment.

I'd make up a ply box about 100mm high and about 500mm square or so, fill it with bricks, bolt the drill press to it and mount it on a standard mobile base. When the wheels are up, it sits on the floor and the bricks will give it some mass. Yep, that's what I'd do...

Yes. I have mine on a mobile base and it shows no signs of being top heavy or overturning as some have suggested here. Works just as I want it to.
I'll post a picture and some dimensions, but I won't be around now till Saturday.

Kind regards
Brian

My DP is on a mobile base, and I've never had problems with it being top heavy.

As per some other responses, I'll get out the digicam when I get home.

Cheers,
Andrew

A day later than promised but I'm back here at last.
My base is essentially from 200 Original Shop Aids & Jigs(Capotosto).

Base is 600 x 410 x 36 made of two pieces of 18mm ply glued and screwed together, corners about 35mm radius.
The supports are two scraps of pine stud 70 x 35, 410 long.
4 coach screws 3/8" x 3" & washers
4 butt hinges.
4 casters 50mm (2 fixed, 2 swivel)

The photos should be self explanatory.

Capotosto showed wooden operating levers on the supports but I have not bothered with them as I only occasionally move the drill press. Just tilt forward and move the support with the toe of my shoe, then tilt back etc. There is enough binding in the hinges to hold the supports in the folded up position.
If you were small or frail the levers would probably be needed.
It's only 3 years since made this so I haven't painted it yet. Maybe in the next ten years?

I don't see any problem as long as the base is wide enough.
My bench top press in on a table trolly (soon to get a new base ) the base is about 600 wide & 800 deep.
No way is it falling over.
If you want some more stability, the box base with balast is a good go. I'd recomend fine gravel rather than bricks it will fill any shape box better & it will tend to damp vibration.
One of those bases you've got would doo the trick nicely or do you need some more.

I built a mobile base and used the Carbatec swivel locking casters - they lock on the wheel and the swivel. I just needed mobility so I built the platform below the wheel height.
It was dangerous and although it never toppled during use it was always in the back of my mind that it could. This was an unnecessary distraction and as lots of fingers are shortened on drill presses I was never confident with it on casters.
The drill press is meant to be bolted to a firm surface but in the home workshop few are. While the press will stand vertical under its own weight a long length of unsupported timber or steel will easily overbalance it.
If mobility isn’t your main priority then block it up and bolt it down otherwise as a few others have said a base with a good footprint, retracting wheels and some ballast.

A drill press is designed to be bolted down. It does not come with wheels
The overhang form the bench of a job clamped to be drilled may be very close to the topple point. To use rests or stands only means that one day you will get caught. The chance of a drill press that is not bolted down tipping over is always there. Is it cheeper to replace after it falls and.....or find it a permanent home and design you other workspace around it.







Procrastinate Now!

I gotta be honest here.

I cringe every time I see this asked. Especially when it's being asked about something more substansial than the weeny little toy ones like I usually end up with. As others here (and everywhere else) say, drill presses are top heavy, and that top is VERY heavy having big castings and a motor up there. At the same time, it should be a precision instrument so one fall and it's landfill.

What I did with mine would lend itself very well to being mobile, but mine isn't because I don't need it. What I did was make up a quick and ugly bench of 2x4 and 1" ply with wide skirts and then sheetmetal folded over the top. Sheetmetal because the grinder also lives up there and I drill as much metal as I do wood. Sheetmetal is easier to clean and it doesn't get chewed up by swarf and slag like bare wood would. Anyway, the bench is far heavier than the drill, plus directly behind it is the grinder which in itself is quite heavy. They are mounted on one end, so looking at the whole thing as a unit, the grinder and drill counterbalance each other, and the rest of the bench counterbalances the weight on the other end. The thing will never tip over, but it does slide around a little when I'm working at the metal vise on that other end.

If you stuck some wheels on that, then it would be fine I am sure. But a mobile base stuck under the original base (that should be bolted down to the floor) is just asking for either a broken drill or a broken foot. Just a matter of time.

And this is from a clown who did this to his drill...

Thanks for the input guys.

Cheers

HTC make a drill press mobile base, expensive though due to the topple risk. See link:
http://www.tools-for-woodworking.com...OD&ProdID=4588