Thread: Nova Viking Drill Press

Apologies, misread your post as being about rack and pinion on the column / table.

Ignore me

My viking has zero play, solid as a rock.

Absolutely sensational drill.

Originally Posted by aarggh

My viking has zero play, solid as a rock.

Absolutely sensational drill.

They look sensational.
A whole next level compared to what we have had before.


I almost couldn’t resist - but being more metalwork orientated, I bought a Milling machine…. For now.

Hello!

For those who've used the Nova Voyager to tap metal, what is the maximum tap size & depth it can do in mild steel? Stainless?

That will depend on the size of the tap and the material being tapped, there is no hard answer.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

That will depend on the size of the tap and the material being tapped, there is no hard answer.

He asked for the maximum tap sizes in mild steel and stainless. There has to be a ballpark figure.

I thought I'd share my setup......


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Cheers,
Mike

More pics....


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The base is a repurposed steel filing cabinet. It was too flimsy as it was so I encased it in a frame I made out of some scrap ironbark and spotted gum. The top was leftover from my first bench and is a couple layers of acacia hardwood panels from Bunnings. I replaced the drawer fronts with some scrap marine ply and also upgraded the castors.


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The top drawer of the filing cabinet was originally for odd bits of stationery and is perfect for the my loose drill bits.


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The drill table is made up of 18mm ply with 12mm MDF on top and the "edgebanding" is an inch thick SG & ironbark.


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The cross slide vise is offset to clear the drill table at its lowest position and is bolted to the cast iron base and the wooden top via a spacer block. My plan is to use it for mortising when I get around to buying a mortising attachment.....or I may end up buying a dedicated mortiser if I can find some floor space for it in my tiny 'shop. The only thing I bought for this project was the cross slide vise and an aerosol can of black paint.

Nice. I like that double CBN wheel grinder you have there. Is that commercially available, or DIY?

Originally Posted by jack620

Nice. I like that double CBN wheel grinder you have there. Is that commercially available, or DIY?

Thanks mate.

The grinder is commercially available and is made by Vicmarc. I looked at DIY solutions and by the time I totalled up the grinder, the Vicmarc CBN wheels, and the jigs......it was approaching the cost of the Vicmarc grinding station. I should point out that by this point I had narrowed my choice of CBN wheels to the Vicmarc wheels because they had 40mm CBN sides which allows for flat grinds. A DIY setup using other CBN wheels would no doubt be a lot cheaper. Please take this into consideration. Cheers.

Originally Posted by KahoyKutter

A DIY setup using other CBN wheels would no doubt be a lot cheaper. Please take this into consideration. Cheers.

Thanks. I have one of those wheels on my pedestal grinder. I love it.

Does anyone know the column specs for the Viking. I am asking because I would like to put a longer column on it. 12 more inches versus the floor model would allow me to end drill some of my toys.
Not sure how to add/paste a picture

To me one of the important issues for wood is max speed. And for metal work it is the run out at the tip (chuck). Some seem to quote numbers around .015 which is very small. However when you actually see the machine and run a few checks the run out is far greater than .015.
I recently bought a flat belt drive unit which has top stepped of 4000 rpm and it weighs 180kg.
A nice feature but not the be all to end all has reverse. And really up to 12mm i would use a battery drill for threading anyway,
The drill runs flat belt drive and stands roughly 1900mm tall and Col diameter is 90mm but the wall thickness of the col is never stated.
For woodwork the stiffness and deflection i doubt would ever be a concern. However for serious metalwork I would look very hard at gearhead machines.
I think personally, drill presses are terrible quality for the money and like Albert, I persevered for ages with a very cheap drill press.
It seemed to any decent machine it cost a bomb. But i did relent and very recently bought a new drill press.
This all happened a month or so ago and for those who purchased the Nova machines at Carbatec i have heard nothing but good stories by everyone.

Hi all,

A former college friend of mine in Canada (named Carol) bought the Viking, after hearing about the Voyager from me. She loves it for her smaller wood working projects, but she's almost exclusively working with wood.... maybe some soft materials like plastic or acrylic on the odd occasion. I have only seen the Viking once in store, for all of maybe 5 minutes. I did like the screen. It's undeniable that there's a lot of similar tech to the Voyager in the Viking.. but I didn't see it in action. So take my humble opinion for the limited guidance that it is. However, as a Voyager owner... I have some thoughts and experiences I'd like to share.

Yes, the Viking is cheaper, smaller, and the display is absolutely better than the Voyager. I vaguely recall that Carol mentioned that she liked the included light and laser too. So if you have space limits, poor vision, and think the readability/illumination/laser is important, then as a "stock" item, the Viking is clearly the better choice.

That said...

Ok, I don't just work in wood, so that extra 1HP makes a ton of difference to me for efficient work flows. I've drilled various steels, (mild, hardened, stainless (314 and 316) and even some specific "tool" steels with sometimes interesting effects). I've also drilled aluminium, brass, acrylic, polycarb, as well as the full gamut of wood. Some days, I can switch materials from one minute to the next. Just last week, I was drilling a 12mm wide hole down the centre of a round stainless steel rod, then mild steel 50x50x3mm SHS/RHS, and then plywood. Ok, sure, I can do that with a cordless 18V drill and a jig... but it's very slow to drill larger holes in harder materials. I'd imagine the Viking would still do better than many alternatives. Just not as fast as the Voyager, and perhaps a slightly gentler approach it with care/smaller jumps to successively larger bits.

Now here's where the Viking falls down a bit.... relative to the Voyager.

The stroke on the Voyager is 150mm, and only 114mm (or so) on the Viking. I work with a surprising amount of wood depths in the 125mm range (the limit of my thicknesser with my extended in/out feed table). If I need to trim it down into smaller thicknesses, I'll do that on my table saw/band saw. So considering your workflow with capacities of your other tools is helpful.

If you're like me, and have hate/detest relationship with keyed chucks because the key is frequently "misplaced" by a helper, relative, or someone in the neighbourhood who is "borrowing" your workshop. Tying it to a string isn't ideal either it just gets in the way. So, one of the first things I added to the Voyager was an after-market keyless chuck. For wood working, the supplied keyed chuck is fine. For metal work, the run out was a red flag for me. While I'm painfully aware that the the Voyager is not the same as the Vulcan/Mill Drill setup. But the Vulcan/Mill is larger, more expensive, and more complex/cumbersome to use if you just drill holes most of the time.

Interestingly, the keyless chuck I have is actually quite hard to grip on the top bit.... So to combat this, I have my preset number 4 set to powered spindle lock (so I can tighten and loosen the chuck one handed) and this saves me so much time, I can't even begin to describe it. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it took me months to find this helpful feature, but a flat minute to configure with a preset. In short, if you want to use a keyless chuck, and use the spindle lock, then the Voyager's presets will be a major convenience/comfort boon.

Now obviously, the Viking is a bench top model, and the Voyager is a floor standing one. Those building cabinets/tables, drilling into the ends of metre-ish lengths of wood... then the Voyager is clearly the most-suited choice. I have a removable chest of drawers under my drill press table for storing odds and ends... I can operate on smaller projects with the drawers in place, but I will occasionally "go big" by moving the chest of drawers out and lowering/swinging the table out of the way. If you don't need that, then the Viking is amazing.

So what of the fancy lasers/lights?

I of course, have done what others suggested in the preceding replies and added the Wixey laser and magnetically-attached additional lighting to the Voyager. Naturally, this adds expense to a drill that's already noticeably more expensive. I guess it comes down to your priorities, needs, and of course, budget.

The most disheartening thing I found about my Voyager, was that it tripped the circuit breaker the first time I powered up. When it happened a few times, I contacted the folks at Teknatool, and their advice was not as helpful as it could have been. Oddly it was only occasionally, and even then, only during initial power up, (drilling was fine) so I boot it up when I enter the workshop, and shut it down at the end of the day. I think it was a bit of a touchy 10A breaker. I think the Voyager spikes somewhere close to 10A initially. Now I have a 15A circuit in the shop, and that issue has stopped. However, from what I've heard/read from other users and reviewers, it should work fine on most 10A circuits.

I generally Facetime Carol when she wants IT help, but from what she says, I can only conclude that she is in a fierce state of love with her Viking, and her husband complained to me about it. (It happened before a few years back when she got her lathe). Clearly, the Viking suits her needs, so I think it's a great choice for her and anyone who has similar requirements. If I could have the shiny new Viking screen added to my Voyager, it's really the only thing I feel is lacking. The rest, I've attended to in one way or another.

Anyway, I hope this sheds light on "which Nova should I get" for someone out there!

Good luck with the drill search!
Hamish.

P.S. Here's a pic of my Voyager, and cabinet, just so you know I'm not leading you down/up the garden path. Please ignore the clutter. Just remember that the only milling capable Nova is the Vulcan, and I've never seen it in person. (Carbatec is a wood working supplier, afterall). Neither the Viking nor the Voyager can be used for milling. The bearings cannot handle the lateral forces.
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