Thread: Thoughts on Waldown BDB13 - CHEAP drill press...

Hi, I have looked up the Brobo site and cannot find any mention of the alternative they suggested.

As to used Waldron units, they are generally 3 speed units either high speed or medium speed. I suspect that the speed ranges were determined by fitting 1440RPM or 2880 RPM motors as the pulley sets on most of the units I recall are the same. As 3 speed units they are probably limited in the capacity range that they can handle. Can be very capable machines but genrally limited to a given capacity range. You might be able to overcome this by installing a two speed motor ($200 to $300 upgrade), but it still won't be as versatile as a well designed 12 or 16 speed unit. If you were to go all out and go to a electronic variable speed unit, you would end up with a unit dearer than a new Hitachi.

Having spent a lot of time looking and considering, I am personally inclined to go the Hitachi route and will be buying in the next couple of months.

Not sure how fine you want to go in jewellery work but there are small industrial presses often used in PCB work that sometimes come up. Up to 6mm capacity variespeed or 3 speed to 10KPRMn and beyond, chuck a 0.5mm drill and very accurate. Another possibility would be a Dremel in a stand, with the option of a flex shaft as well for finishing.

Thanks Malb!

I hadn't even thought about the speeds since the multi-speeds are so standard now! Stupid I guess, but still...

As for the jewellery - I have a digital dremel and flex shaft. I have made do with those for most stuff. We also use punches. But there are always times that you want to push the limits... Or at least I do.

So I suppose that saying I want something that does both indicates what I am aiming for. The Proxxon drills are great - but even in the workshops I learned in they had one of those plus a larger one for drilling bigger holes at a slower speed.

Thanks for the advice though - I'll keep an eye out for good Hitachi deals. Equally if you get one, I would love to hear about how it works out.

Cheers

Cam

Another option?

The bottom two on this page look like HAFCO rebrands - and I can look at them locally.

Any thoughts on that?

Moonah Machinery - Woodwork Machinery Product Range

Units would be worth a look but take care that the head is properly bored for the quill. Wind the feed down to about 80 to 90% extension, then grasp the quill and check for movement. There should be absolutely none. If there is any present, keep walking, if the display machine seems OK this way and in all other respects, consider the unit but check to unit you get before it leaves the store. Of the units around at the moment that I would consider, the Hitachi seems to be the only one with consistantly good head bores. anything else I see needs individual checking. The place where I am considering getting the Hitachi from has their versions of a couple of the upper machines in your link and they are very sloppy.

Thanks Malb - good advice.

I might even take a dial gauge...

I won't be rushing out tomorrow though, so if you get the Hitachi I would be interested to see your response. The price for the Hitachi seems good, but I have read some bad reviews of their smaller machines which made me a little concerned.

Dial guage will help with spindle/chuck runout testing but isn't needed to check the head bore. Typical Chinese consumer units carry about a mil of slop, meaning that there is no point in using a fence and stop setup to accurately and repeatably set up for a job. Drill will wander around like a drunk on the material surface until it scratches a start somewhere, then the drill will follow the start.

I have used some of these blighted "orbital" drills that could drill a fairly accurately sized hole, so there wasn't a lot of runout, but they couldn't start them with any repeatability.

Wow, there is certainly some variation... I just went to the local Carbatec stockist. One drill had no slop (although twisted a bit, but I suspect that this is not a big deal). The other two had slop. Interestingly enough the smaller drills were better in this quick test, but that was probably just a coincidence.

Next port of call is the other shop - then trying to track down a Hitachi. See if someone will order one.

Cheers
Cam

When you say "twisted a bit", I assume that you found play in the drive splines in the spindle. The pulley assembly is bearing mounted in the head and fixed in height. The spindle rises and falls with the quill, and drive couples from the pulley assembly to the spindle via splines, internal in the pulley assembly and external on the spindle. A small clearance between the splines is essential for free feeding and withdrawing, but some units can have excessive clearance resulting in play or slop.
Should not be a critical flaw, but it is indicative of the manufacturers inability to design and work to close tolerances.

Ok, you lost me on some of that... The quill twisted a bit - but didn't wobble. I think that is probably OK?

Anyway, the point is that none of the units I was going to consider were within tolerances I would be happy with as the weakest smallest drill was the only one without slop.

It would be interesting to see if the Hitachi is much better!

Cheers

Cam

So the quill had angular play in the head, rather than the spindle having play in the drive splines betwen the pulley assembly and chuck.

The quill normally has a keyway running the full length and a pin/key/grubscrew in the head protrudes into that to control quill rotation. As an alternative, the teeth cut into the quill for the rack and pinion feed mechanism and the actual feed pinion serve the same function. Rotary freedom suggests either pooor design or poor machining.

Only time I would see it as a major problem (provided that it didn't get worse quickly) would be if you were to use the machine with a morticing head, as rotation would lead to jagged mortice walls because the chisel sides would rotate away from parallel to workpiece edge.