Thread: Which old drill press brands to look out for?

What do I think of that one? I like mine but I only paid a little over NZD$100 for it and it's a pedestal one too. It's my second "dirty" drill press, I have a nice Chinese one for woodwork. Things you should know......the quill set-up is out of the Ark (not a Morse taper) and the "Armstrong" table adjustment can be a bit of a bother if you've been lulled into a false sense of convenience by the new ratchet adjustable table on the Chi-wanese machines and you have a vise and some work clamped to the table.....
But it can be used for tapping and I will once I have a handle to fit over the shaft of the quill.....this is done with power off....standard safety warning just in case.

Anyway, I love mine.....even if the chuck is welded onto the quill.

He must be getting desperate. I first saw the drill, bench and vise setup as per pics for a start price around $1500 about 4 months ago, and its worked its way down to $300 start, but the description doesn't mention bench and vise anymore although they show in the pics.

I wouldn't buy any drill press without looking at it, or at least a shop display unit of the unit. I recentlly got my long awaited Hitachi B16RM from Gasweld and it is spot on, about the only mid sized Chinese drill that I have found that is. Looked at about 100 drills over 4 years in small to mid range and all were sus except the Hitachi (looked at 4 different display units over time and all were great), theg GW had an Aussie Day weekend sale and dropped them another 10%, so I got myself a good bargain ($540 del versus $690 at Trade Tools when they first started selling them, $640 a couple of months ago). A lot dearer than most generic units of similar size, but you can set up fence and stop systems and get decent repeatable results, rather than the random somewhere within 2mm that some of the cruddier units offer.