Drill Press power

[Phil Mailloux]

My wife's buying me a drill press for x-mas.

My two choices are from carba-tec. The 16 speed 3/4hp press for $375 and the tilting head press thats 370 watts for $299.

I like the tilting head one better but my question is: How many hp's are 370watts?
Is this a stronger or slower motor than the other one?

Does anyone own that press and have comments on it? Like it, don't like it?

[redwood]

My wife's buying me a drill press for x-mas.

My two choices are from carba-tec. The 16 speed 3/4hp press for $375 and the tilting head press thats 370 watts for $299.

I like the tilting head one better but my question is: How many hp's are 370watts?
Is this a stronger or slower motor than the other one?

Does anyone own that press and have comments on it? Like it, don't like it?

Thats lovley of her:o are you going to return that beautifull guesture and buy her a nice cmt forstner bit set;)

[bsrlee]

The tilting head unit is about 1/4 or 1/3 HP. Some time ago, may have been on another board, someone was moaning about having a tilt head drill & how hard it was to get the thing to drill straight & 90 deg. holes & keep them consistant. Seems his one kept wanting to tilt & slide in & out all by itself:o

If you are going for a pedestal drill (floor standing) I'd go for the bigger unit - more power for big holes, the table tilts & rises better. You can add a new table of MDF or ply & put hold downs & jigs on it that will do most of what a tilthead drill will do. As a benchtop unit, I'd still go for the bigger unit - you can usually spin the head 180 to drill into long bits resting on the floor if you mount it cleverly.

I have a little Ryobi toy that is about 1/3 hp - 300 and something watts IIRC - and I'm wating till I've done up the garage before I replace it with a 'real' floor standing drill press - I've stalled it or pulled the chuck off too often.

[Stompa]

Phil, 370 watts is equal to 0.49617817 hp or roughly there abouts approximately.

Marty

[Waldo]

G'day Phil,

Go the 16 speed. More versitile in the stuff you can drill. You can always make up jigs to set the piece you're drilling if angles are required and you do enough of them.

(soryy Brslee, I've touched a bit on what you said - but very valid points and I'm echoing them to back you up)

FYI I have a 16spd Klass Heavy Duty pedstal drill with a solid steel column - weighs an absolute tonne and is about 25+ years old and strong as - was my late Dad's.

[Phil Mailloux]

Thanks guys, you saved me! That is really not enough power for what i'm going to use it for. I'm going for the 16 speed one :)

[Toggy]

Just bought a 750W (1hp) pedestal this week from a local toolshop. Sher Tools badged chinese job. The young bloke with the shop has tried just about all the imports; and thinks that the Sher is probably the best. Has placed a couple into machineshops that have no respect for machinery. They haven't been able to kill these.

Mine is a smooth as silk & I'm excited.


"Big" Ken

[Termite]

Somewhere on this forum I've read bad reports on the tilt head unit.

[mat]

These cheaper chinese presses are extremely variable in quality. The one area where you have no room to move or fine tune is the slackness in the quill machining in the head. Do not order one of these drills! Buy one off the floor that you have personally inspected.

Extend the quill to full length, back off slightly and feel for slop sideways and fore/aft. A great number of these presses have a lot of slop leading to inaccurate holes, vibration and drill breakage.

I learnt the hard way so I hope others benefit form this advice.