Drill press

[crannygoat]

Anyone have suggestions for a decent drill press? I'm thinking something radial...

Thanks

[Chris Hall]

How much money are you looking to relieve yourself of - more to the point, what's the maximum you would spend?

[crannygoat]

Hi Chris, I'm looking in the 1500-2000 range. Wouldn't mind a machine with simple milling capabilities.
Thanks,
Michael

[Chris Hall]

Drill presses are a nightmare.

You'd think it would be some simple sort of thing, after all what a drill press does is quite simple. Finding a quality drill press at a reasonable price is challenging however. I've been looking a long time for such a beast.

Sounds like you're looking in the direction of a mill/drill, which any machinist will poo-poo. For good reason, as the drill press is not meant to deal with significant lateral loads, as you would get with any sort of milling operation. However, this is more a concern in metal than wood for sure. Probably for only working wood, a mill drill will be okay. As far as mill/drills go, most of the choices you have are going to be Chinese or Taiwanese machines at that price point. Are you looking for a new machine, or used, at that budget? A typical brand new mill/drill is around $4000 for the smaller models.

Mill/drill and radial do not go together in one machine from what I have seen.

Radial drills: Stay away from anything Delta or Rockwell. Most radial drills are enormous beasts, so finding a small one which is stout and well made is difficult. The nicest I've seen is the Swiss made Oerlikon UB-2:

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Well outside your budget though.

Another option to consider along these lines is a Bridgeport style of milling machine.

Then there are 'Precision' drill presses. Most of the American manufacturers are long since defunct, so spare parts will likely be problematc.

Here's an Allen for under $1500:

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If you go to inspect a used drill press, bring a dial indicator with you to inspect quill/spindle run out. That's the most critical aspect to getting clean straight holes, assuming good tooling.

[crannygoat]

Thanks for the info Chris. Yeah, drill presses do seem to be a nightmare, along with jointer fences. Kinda keen on getting something with milling capabilities, because a jointer fence that does what it's supposed to do can't be that hard to design and and build. I have something in mind for my scm 420...
Anyway, I came across this for a good price. It has no tooling with it. The guy tells me it has an NMT taper shank. From what I can tell it's not obsolete, but I will want to use it as a drill press, but haven't yet found a chuck with NMT taper. Obviously the bed is in rough shape, but I believe it is hooked up to a two axis power feed. He says there is next to no runout. That sounds to me like there is runout. If so, can it be corrected with a taper reamer? How much?
I have very little knowledge or experience with such machines, so any advice before I commit to buying another hunk of metal would be greatly appreciated.
Here's the machine, guy does not know what brand it is, nor does google image search.

[Chris Hall]

He says there is next to no runout. That sounds to me like there is runout. If so, can it be corrected with a taper reamer? How much?

Only way to know for sure is to measure it with a dial indicator, and decide in advance how much you can put up with. Opinions vary in that regard, and at the end of the day, machinists will tell you that a drill press is not the best machine for precision hole drilling.

Measure first at the chuck, with a 4" or 6" piece of drill rod inserted in the chuck. See what number you get there. Also push and pull on the chuck laterally to get an idea of play in the bearings. Then remove the chuck and measure run out on the inside of the taper. That will tell you whether your spindle is bent or not. If the spindle is not bent, but you have run out at the chuck end then you are looking at a new chuck and/or some clean up reaming on the taper. Putting the chuck in with some engineer's blue will give you an idea of how good the interface is.

It seems to me that having total run out at the chuck end of 0.002" or less would be fine.

If I were looking at a jointer fence, I'm not sure a small mill drill like that is a good option for getting an accurate result. Probably cheaper and better is to obtain an Aigner jointer fence....