Help re drill presses

[colleend]

This is a dumb question re drill presses

We need to buy one as we need one for making plugs, wheels etc for toys. I'm wondering are brands similar? I have been looking at carbatec and also gas weld's website and we are tossing up between a bench and a floor standing one. I'd love anyone's comments on them as we are going to have to buy one in a hurry. Daughters b'day is next weekend and the rocking cradle in tasman oak is finished barring the plugs that need the drill press.

[artme]

Most of the drill presses thes days come out China, and many from the same factory.

C/tec and Hare and Forbes ( Hafco ) semm to be the same. Can,t speak about Gasweld.

I have a bench model Hafco and am extremely happy withit. A floorstanding model of course leaves more bench space.

[munruben]

I would go the free standing one myself if I had the choice. Saves bench space and more portable in the sense that it doesn't need a bench to sit it on.

[Christos]

I have a floor standing one from Carbatec. Has the option to bolt to the floor but as I have a small workshop I just put a couple of 10kg weights on the base. Gives me a little more room to move so to speak.

[Charleville]

18 months ago, I went with a freestanding Jet drill press after looking at the Carba-Tecs etc.

The Jet was twice the price of the Carba-Tecs but I had read a lot in these forums that highlighted that a lot of the cheaper machines have quite a bit of horizontal play at the chuck because of casting quality problems in the body of the machine. That was certainly what I found when I inspected floor models of the machines and gave them a good shake.

The conventional wisdom at the time was that it was a lottery as to what the quality of a machine would be in this regard coming out of the box and that if you can, buy one off the floor that you know the level of horizontal play of.

In my case, I bought the display machine on the floor at Gregory's because it was the only machine that they had left. That worked out pretty well as I had given it an almighty good shake at the chuck in the extended position to identify if it was tight without movement. Plus, being display stock, the price was improved on also.

18 months on, it is one of my favourite machines in my workshop. I really do like using it. The built-in lamp is a great bonus to a quality machine.


I reiterate though that it did cost twice the price of a comparable Carba-Tec machine. If you can test the play on the machines that they want to sell you and can reject them until you get one without play, that would be ideal.


Go the floor machine. You will have forgotten the price difference in no time and the flexibility of the floor machine is great.


.

[Paulphot]

I bought a Gasweld (Toolex) bench mounted drill press last year for drilling pen blanks and it's okay. I hindsight, there is a bit of play in the chuck which isn't too bad, I can work around it most of the time. One feature I would have liked is a geared crank for raising and lowering the drill press table. Mine is just a screw clamp that ou loosen to raise or lower, doesn't allow for fine adjustments. But for about $110, it does okay. Once I wear this one out, I'll look at something bigger and better. The motor on this one is only 1/3 HP from memory and it bogs down if I'm not careful, even on the second slowest speed.

My 2 cents worth for you.

[les88]

I bought a Toolex bench drill press 35 years ago. It has a geared rise and fall table which IMO is a necessity.
the faults with it
morse taper chuck... it becomes loose, I lapped it in with cutting compound and it would still fall out at the wrong time. Now I have jammed a paper wedge in it and it is still holding.
bolting it to the table cracked the diecast base. Had to make timber spaces to fit under the base so no pressure was on the diecast.
In hindsight I would have bought a floor model.
les

[colleend]

Thanks for all of your help. We managed to borrow a friends ( a low end one) and that was great as we have realised we want a floor standing one and at least a reasonable one. We will keep your points in mind and will probably look at the woodwork show unless there are some sales before hand.