Thread: Which pedestal drill press should I buy?

Go there in person and bargain with them. the salesman have a bit of leeway up their sleeves.

By the way, don't you find interesting how H&F use to be mainly woodworking and are now mainly metalwork?

Originally Posted by Marc

Go there in person and bargain with them. the salesman have a bit of leeway up their sleeves.
By the way, don't you find interesting how H&F use to be mainly woodworking and are now mainly metalwork?

Here in the west I'd say that's mining industry driven. Several times I've been there to buy something and brought it off the shelf up to the checkout and they have gone out the back to check and come back to tell me that all the same items on the shelf have been sold. When pushed they said it was to a mining company.

I think the drill presses they are selling are out if China not Taiwan.

Originally Posted by BrentonSpear

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the great advice.

The H&F drill press is the one I was looking at.

Brenton

Good luck, I hope you get a good one, if you can, make sure you give it a careful inspection before delivery...

Ray

This one is from Taiwan
http://www.machineryhouse.com.au/D162#

The rest are from China

Originally Posted by Maxi77

This one is from Taiwan
http://www.machineryhouse.com.au/D162#

The rest are from China

Mine says made in Taiwan

Originally Posted by Marc

Mine says made in Taiwan

The new PD-26 is made in China, Maybe the older ones where taiwanese? Like a lot of machinery used to be made in Taiwan including pedestal drills now is made in China.

I went to H&F today to have a look at their drill range.

All of their drill presses were made in China.

The D162 was not on display so I could not compare it against the others.

When I asked the sales person about their Chinese built drills versus the Taiwanese ones he really wasn't interested and just huffed at me.

I am now looking at other options as the D162 is quite a bit more expensive than the other drills.

Anyone have an opinion on the Steelmaster SM-B32 drill:

http://www.assetplant.com/epages/sho...oducts/11-0103

Not sure where it is manufactured.

Originally Posted by BrentonSpear

I went to H&F today to have a look at their drill range.

. . . . . .

When I asked the sales person about their Chinese built drills versus the Taiwanese ones he really wasn't interested and just huffed at me.

That's pretty much my experience as well. I've found you have to know pretty much what you want to buy and trying to have a chat or discussion with them about how to solve a problem is almost a complete waste of time, their sales people don't seem to be that knowledgeable about what they sell.

What i realised some time ago is that here in WA, these guys sell in bulk to the mining industry. One salesman I have dealt with a few times told me when I went in last time he had just sold 100 25 mm MT3 bits to a mining company, so me coming in to buy one looked pretty ordinary. These guys need to realise that the mining boom is nearly over and then where will the customers come from?

Originally Posted by BobL

These guys need to realise that the mining boom is nearly over and then where will the customers come from?

The manufacturing boom will take over.....

Originally Posted by BrentonSpear

Anyone have an opinion on the Steelmaster SM-B32 drill:

http://www.assetplant.com/epages/sho...oducts/11-0103

Not sure where it is manufactured.

This is why I asked what size holes you wanted to drill. That machine is slanted towards larger holes - the socket is MT4 which means just about everything will need an adaptor sleeve. Plenty of grunt but I think the top speed, the taper and the T slot size suggest that unless your average hole is going to be say 10mm or bigger, a slightly smaller machine may be a better purchase.

Michael

Originally Posted by Michael G

This is why I asked what size holes you wanted to drill. That machine is slanted towards larger holes - the socket is MT4 which means just about everything will need an adaptor sleeve. Plenty of grunt but I think the top speed, the taper and the T slot size suggest that unless your average hole is going to be say 10mm or bigger, a slightly smaller machine may be a better purchase.

Michael

Hi Michael,

To be honest I am not sure what hole size I will mostly drill. Up to 10mm sounds right but I expect there will be times when I have a requirement for larger.

What are you referring to regarding having to use 'adaptor sleeves'?

Commonly drills up to 13mm diameter have straight shank and you use a drill chuck to hold them - but the drill will/ should come with a chuck. Once you get above that you either go to reduced shank drills or more commonly Morse taper drills. The Morse taper (MT) on the drill bit depends on size, so for example 23mm diameter is typically MT2 and above that is MT3. As that drill has a socket which is MT4, you will need adaptors to cope with smaller size drills. Extra tooling = extra cost plus possibly increased run out if the adaptors are not concentric.

If your holes are going to mainly be up to 10mm, a machine with a MT2 or MT3 taper will probably be better. A smaller machine should have a higher top speed and the chuck is likely to be 0.5 to 13mm for example rather than 1 to 16mm which larger drill presses sometimes are equipped with (that is, some of these chucks won't hole a drill smaller than 3mm). Something like a Hare & Forbes D147 or D148 may be better for you. It only has 80mm of spindle travel but if you are mainly using drills less than 10mm in diameter it is unlikely to matter as the flutes only just get up to that length anyway. Throat depth is reduced but that may not be important either.

Michael