Drill press choice?

[samthedog]

I have an Arboga E2508 and it is a fantastic drill press. What makes it great is the rpm range that is from 100 to 2700 rpm, it's rigidity, clearance from the table to the spindle, common MT3 spindle and rack and pinion table AND head adjustment.

I found that what a drill press offers is the rapid removal of material with large drill bits that a mill might struggle with. The rigidity is super important because when you start to get past a 1 inch drill bit, it puts huge torque on the machine and causes things to flex and move in ways you wouldn't expect. I would expect that this would cause havoc on a mill's accuracy. My advice is to get the most rigid press you can - specifically the largest sized column you can find. I can recommend Arboga machines and they tend to come up quite often in the USA despite being a Swedish machine.

Paul.

 

[Alan H.]

I started this thread in Feb. 2017. Of course there has been a little water under the bridge since then and I thought I would report back on this thread of where it all landed.

After a lot of research, searching for used machines, and evaluating what was available new, I bought a new Ellis 9400. I have had it for over a year. It is a fine drill press and augments my milling machine and lathe. Ellis has a very good reputation. I believe the reputation is earned because it is quite robust, rigid and heavy construction, variable speed via a VFD, and generally very well made. It offers excellent low speed performance.

I recently needed to drill several 3/4" diameter holes in some structural steel. I adapted the machine to use an annular cutter and its power feed. The Ellis performed very well cutting these holes. The holes were cut in less than 8 seconds in 1/4" thick steel. I posted this elsewhere here on the forum so some of you have seen it but for fun, here's the very short video snippet of one of these holes being cut.