Buying a drill press

[Eric Smith]

Gentlemen, I am considering buying a benchtop drill press. My bench is 8 1/2' long, with another 4' long bench for other work. I am intersted in using this drill pres to drill holes in lock plates, buttplates, and for polishing work, plus turning and filing lock bolts. I submit this link for your perusal as to whether or not this" benchtop drill press " would fit the bill for the average gunstocker/smith.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/12-Speed-Heavy-Duty-Bench-Top-Drill-Press/G7943


Opinions welcomed.      Eric the beginner

[Bob Roller]

Eric,
Buy the heaviest one you can afford.I have an American Rockwell from 1964 and other than a new motor control switch.no problems.If you have any money left,also buy a rotary table with 2 axis controls.I have one of these as well from Palmgren which was Chicago Tool and Engineering.
Try to avoid these little drill presses that are frequently on sale for under $75. I have one that has never drilled a hole but is used as a wad cutter or even a patch cutter with a Teflon block clamped to the bed. Too much flexing to be a good hole driller.
Look close.ask questions,spend carefully.

Bob Roller

[Eric Smith]

I left a link to the one I have narrowed it down to. I'm not sure about it. Check it out by clicking on the link. Opinions welcome.

[billd]

Look for an old craftsman or atlas.  Much better made than most new stuff.  Avoid the "C" word!!  Check Craigslist and similar sites.

Bill

[oldiemkr]

I'm with BillD. I have a 1940's Walker Turner It does everthing I've ever expected on a drill press. Only replaced the switch.

The cost was zero because it was "old". I paid $65.00 for an old Taiwan made drill press for my son at auction. It was a larger size one with a morse taper spindle. It has held up pretty well.

Even the Craftsman,Delta etc. these days are Chinese {mainland}. The range of quality is from real bad to maybe acceptable. I'd like to see it and hear from someone who has used this model before I bought it.

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

Looks like the model they sell at Home Depot that I bought several years ago. If you're going to go  Cheapo Go to home depot and save on the shipping.

[Meteorman]

IOpinions welcome.

Eric-
I have the Grizzly benchtop.  (One of the 3 Grizzly showrooms is within easy driving range of me, so no shipping costs).
Have had it for 7-8 years now, use it hard for many things, and and have not had any problems doing what needs to be done for building muzzleloaders.
Sure, a heavier American made would be nice. 
But, the cost is hard to beat and, to date, I have no complaints with the Grizzly.......
/mike

[G-Man]

The others advice is sound - I have a small Delta bench top drill press that works OK - I think it is about 15 years old -  I don't use it a whole lot though.  If I did I would be looking for an older American made one.  I wish it had more vertical travel - this may be a common problem on smaller drill presses but mine is pretty limited - and the extra depth  would comes in handy when doing lock tang bolts and lock bolts.   I found that when working  on a wide-breeched early style gun it can be a really tight fit to get everything in place, aligned and secured and still have enough travel to drill the hole all the way through in the first pass.  

Guy

[Lucky R A]

    You may want to rethink the bench top drill press.  A floor model doesn't have much of a foot print and if as you indicate you want to get serious about longrifle building you will probably find it inadequate.   Older Delta etc. drill presses are available for the price of the benchtop.  You will want to mount a X vice on the table to accurately postion your parts. With a benchtop you may not have enough room.   As you progress you may find the need to drill through holes as in a shot gun butt stock and your bench top will certainly not handle that.  Buy in haste and repent at leasure.....Lucky

[aflo]

I have run into a similar situation with my little 12" Craftsman bench top drill press. It has served me very well for several years but I recently got a tubing notcher for some other projects and the vertical capacity will not let me use this Craftsman for it.
I am at a point where I can go buy a bigger press ($350 or more) or cobble the one I have into working - in which case I lose its drilling function. I could rebuild it back and forth, from the tubing notcher function to drilling but that would take a couple of hours each time.

[hanshi]

I think if you will be doing any goodly amount of steel and/or very precision work a good, heavy floor model is what you should look at.  With a coupon in my hot little hand I bought one for $50 from HF.  I've drilled wood, brass and a little mild steel but would classify this bench press as a light duty hobby tool.

Be that as it may; it is definitely worth more than it cost me.  I'm very pleased with it and it does anything I ask of it and does it well.  A gunsmith/builder needs something more substantial, however.

[Acer Saccharum]

I like a the drill press table top to be able to hold and clamp a right angle plate, so that I can clamp a gunstock to it. So you should have T-slots in the worktop. You must be able to swing this side to side to position the work.

When I want to drill a tang bolt, for example, I need room left and right of the drill for the buttstock to hang down to the left, and the barrel to the right. I use the aforementioned angle plate to clamp the stock to. I also have a pointed bolt sticking up from the table top that gets centered directly under the drill.  Pointed bolt goes in a centerpunch mark UNDER the stock, where you want the drill to come out. This takes a fair amount of room under the chuck, maybe 12", and a tabletop press may be too restricting by the time you have all this $#@* set up and ready to drill.

[Acer Saccharum]

This tool would avoid that incredibly complicated set up, if you made one with bushings to take tap drill, body drill, and tap.

Was it Dave Rase/Tom Snyder that offered these for 1/16 stock pin drilling?

[wmrike]

I spent years with a bench press I got from Dayton, I think it was.  Looking back, I have to be amazed at some of the work that was done with it.  I wouldn't be put off by size, but in the long run, bigger is better.

More important than size is the versatility of the table, the ability to crank up and down, and rotate.  Just as important as the press itself, however, are the accessories (vises).  To my way of thinking, they really make the press a tool.  By the time you get something that has X-Y movement and tilt (oh, sorry, you have that in your table), you're talking an extra couple hundred bucks, so figure that into the deal.

Floor models.  I like to have the table up fairly close to my eyes, so that's going to be about 42-48" off the floor.  From what I've seen in the past few years, most of the floor units are made for really, very, awfully short people.  I dunno.  Maybe they sell extensions.  Maybe someone else can comment on this.

[Acer Saccharum]

Short floor models: Put it up on blocks.

Heavier is better. Heavy column, heavy spindle, large chuck, big motor, all translate into chatter-free work.

Don't think that you will make a good milling machine out of your drillpress with an X-Y table. Sideload is bad for the chuck and bearings. You can get away with light cuts with drill press as a mill, but you must be oh-so-careful not to let the work grab.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

This tool would avoid that incredibly complicated set up, if you made one with bushings to take tap drill, body drill, and tap.

Was it Dave Rase/Tom Snyder that offered these for 1/16 stock pin drilling?

I bought one from Tom Snyder..... I use it with a hand powered eggbeater drill..  The only thing I use the Drill press for anymore is the lockplate and trigger plate cause I want to use the chuck to tap the holes without having moved the plates... gets the tap started at exactly the same angle that  the drill went through....

I find the hand drill much easier, faster and less cumbersome for any drilling on the stock for pins or lock bolts etc

[b bogart]

Blatant rip off of Dave Rase's fixture. Easy to make, haven't used it yet but wil in the future!

[Meteorman]

I also have a pointed bolt sticking up from the table top that gets centered directly under the drill.  Pointed bolt goes in a centerpunch mark UNDER the stock, where you want the drill to come out. This takes a fair amount of room under the chuck, maybe 12", and a tabletop press may be too restricting by the time you have all this $#@* set up and ready to drill.

You're right Tom, it gets a little close, but it's certainly doable.
With my Grizzly benchtop, I can just about rest the muzzle on the bench and get the angle I need for tang bolt. 
I actually have to shim up the muzzle a little and then clamp it all to a board (which is clamped to my bench) off frame in this picture.
Height of the bottom pin is of course adjustable (until tang hits the drill bit), which helps.
That said, bigger is absolutely better !  Clamping to clamped things gets a little hinky.
Knowin' my luck, I'd worry about the whole dang thing fallin' 4 feet to the floor off a floor press, instead of 8 inches to the benchtop.
cheers,
mike

[44-henry]

It doesn't look too bad as far as bench top drill presses go. I have purchased a lot of Grizzy machines over the last several years and they tend to be decent quality, maybe not up for day to day use in a busy machine shop, but plenty good for the limited use they will see in a home shop environment. The only real problem I have encountered has been electrical and this is something that you do need to watch out for. I have found though that most problems will surface in the first year while the machine is under warranty and Grizzly is good about supporting their equipment should a problem occur.

[kutter]

I have a bench top B&Decker now. Probably 15yrs old or more.  Never any problems w/it.
Used to have a floor model Craftsman before that and found it harder to work with.
The bench itself comes in handy to support the lengthy projects we normally work on and the table top model doesn't take up much room.
I raise the table up on it for clearance space underneath to allow bbls to pass by while in the bbl vise which is right along side of the press at the end of one bench.
Space is tight in the shop..
All that said I end up using a Jet Mill/Drill most all the time now anyway and the Black & Decker DPress doesn't see much use other than quick utility type drilling.

[Acer Saccharum]

Unfortunately, the USA does not make drill presses anymore, so you must buy antique or new import. Grizzly is pretty good, as is Jet and a few others. Mostly the castings are pretty good, bearings and fits OK, but where they fall down is the tolerances on the tapped holes. Handles always unscrew, adjustments loosen up, tapped holes strip. But most of these are easily fixable.

[pake]

Several years ago, in the wake of repeated budget cuts, our local high school decided to drop the Industrial Arts program which had given many like us a pretty good introduction in the use of tools. They held an auction and among other items I purchaced a Delta-Milwaukee (now there's a business name that goes back a few years) band saw and drill press. 60 bucks apiece. Got them home and cleaned up. Saw that they needed a few small parts to bring them into their prime once again, and on a whim called the regional Delta Service Center. They asked me for model and serial #'s which I provided. "OK, the saw was made on April something or other, 1948, and the press in 1949. What parts do you need today?" They not only knew when those machines were made, but they had the parts and sent them to me and in less than a week both machines were humming along like brand new ones. That's customer service even after that company has been split up and sold off several times.

Floor model press by the way. It's amazing how often I configure the thing with the table lowered way down or even swung off to the side. To be honest though, most gun building chores can be done on a bench model. Personally because of all my other uses of a press, I prefer the floor model.

pake

[Eric Smith]

I have one of the drill guides from Tom Snyder which will be used to drill barrel pins. The benchtop drill would be used for other things involved in gun building. If I mount it at the end of my 8 1/2 bench, it will have plenty side clearance for drilling other holes. I appreciate all the input. I was thinking drill press for the overall ability to use it in several different capacities, such as turn bolts, buffing, and of course drill.

[Eric Smith]

Side note: I am just not sure Snyder's drill guide would handle "ALL" the drilling that might arise in the course of a build. Anyone care to comment on that. I just don't know.

[heinz]

Pake, my Delta floor model press is from 1942.  Awesome piece of machinery.  For the first 40 years of its like it was used in a sheet metal factory so it has seen plenty of use.