Drill Press (Central Machinery)

This has been quite an informative thread.

Seems if I go the drill-press route, the 10"s are the way to go for metal from what I've seen from reviews so far. That said, I was debating this year to also get a chinese mill and give them a try. I have been told many people use them for drilling too, which makes me debate on maybe just skipping the drill press for now and jumping right to the mill instead.

Decisions... decisions!
 
I have a floor standing drill press, a 2010 Powermatic designed or at least marketed for wood workers. This is a decent drill press, but still the table has some flex, nothing like the bench style drill press models. I ended up using a clamp in expansion mode to minimize the flexing.

A year ago I purchased a light knee mill. Now I rarely use the drill press, other than with a sanding mop of wire wheel. I do most of my drilling these days on the milling machine, metal or wood. I have considered selling my drill press.

There was a thread some months ago about milling machine vs drill press. A mix of opinions, which is normal. This is not a right or wrong issue, rather the typical personal preference. Some folks have several drill presses.
 
This has been quite an informative thread.

Seems if I go the drill-press route, the 10"s are the way to go for metal from what I've seen from reviews so far. That said, I was debating this year to also get a chinese mill and give them a try. I have been told many people use them for drilling too, which makes me debate on maybe just skipping the drill press for now and jumping right to the mill instead.

Decisions... decisions!



I have a floor drill press and a bench top mill. The drill press still gets it's share of use.
 
In my experience a 10" drill press is too small. I would reccomend a 13" as a minimum.

I decided to start with a drill press while I was looking for a good deal on a mill... it only took me 30 years to find a mill. If skipping a drill press means buying a nicer mill I would put the money towards the nicer mill.
 
I had a chance to spend some time today looking at the HF drill presses. The small ones are useless, the spindle housing moves excessively in the main casting. Even the $399 one moved! There is no easy fix for this so keep looking elsewhere.
 
Now that I think of it, I was in a large HF store today and I don't remember seeing a single drill press. Maybe I missed them somehow... In any case, no worries, I am going to skip on drill presses.
 
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