Drill presses again!

[Lons]

.... I had exactly the same model and as I said it ended up in the skip and my brother had the same experience, doesn't appear we're the only ones either. .......

Come to think it was faulty when I got it home - I think the vendor thought he'd pulled a fast one. But it was just a loose grub screw on the shaft which slackened off the belts, took 5 minutes to find and fix.
Have in the past nearly written things off as beyond repair only to find some simple easy fix - getting 2p pieces out of washing machine pumps and things like that. Doesn't do to give in too easily!

If you saw my workshop, garage and several sheds you would quickly see I do the same, throw nothing away unless it's junk, which makes my comments about the drills even more pointed. When I do throw away I strip off anything useful and because of the pillar drill, a small metal lathe and numerous equipment if I can make a replacement part then I will and get some satisfaction out of doing so.
Still difficult to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear though!

Got a shiner of a black eye yesterday fitting a spare wheel carrier under the motorhome, needed to fashion some steel parts to make it fit and had to be accurate, couldn't have done it with a cr*p drill press.

 

[heimlaga]

If you are doing both woodworking and metalworking you need 2 pillar drills.

Why?
Genuine question for someone who uses mine for both, metalwork is smaller percentage I rarely use cutting fluids and always vacuum up swarf.

There is really no way to drill lage or deep holes inm metal without cutting fluid. Even for small holes in thin material you end up spending a lot of time sharpenig drills or buying new drills if drilling without cutting fluid.
Sometimes you want to use the drill press to start the tap in the correct direction when threading the hole you just drilled. The tap has to be lubricated with oil.
So....... when doing any significant amount of metalwork the drill press will become very dirty. Cutting fluid and oil splatter are more or less impossible to remove from bare wood. If you work one of the two materials only a few times a year you can clean up the drill pres before using it for wood but cleaning it lakes a lot of time every time.

Hence I ended up with two drill presses. It was the only sensible solution.

 

[powertools]

Lone said.

Why?
Genuine question for someone who uses mine for both, metalwork is smaller percentage I rarely use cutting fluids and always vacuum up swarf


I guess that depends on your definition of metalworking.
My most recent metalworking project was railings across the garden to contain the dog. The project included metal cutting, grinding, drilling and welding I would actually go further than saying you need 2 pillar drills, you need 2 separate workshops.
If all you want to do is drill through a washer to increase the hole size that is fine in a woodworking workshop but that is not serious metalworking.
For the record I have a 20 odd year old sealey drill press for metal work and an SIP radial arm drill with a home made table for woodworking.

 

[Lons]

Ah ok powertools I take your point but I guess the majority of us can't justify / have space for 2 sizeable drill presses.

When I thought about it I do more metalwork than I realised which includes all of the tasks you mentioned, my welder is a lowly stick model and wherever possible I do the cutting, grinding and welding outdoors under the carport.
On Monday I needed to fabricate and alter brackets to fit a spare wheel carrier under the motorhome which needed all those tasks apart from welding plus a bit of drilling up to 20mm and did need to use fluid for that but wrapped protective cloth and had minimum clean up.

Not ideal with the drill press but I clean up thoroughly after every job and haven't had any cross contamination so far.

 

[powertools]

Just to make things quite clear, I am not blowing my frock up by saying I have 2 pillar drills and most people only have 1. What I am trying to say is that for most woodworking or metalworking jobs most people will encounter in a home workshop do not need to buy a high end engineering quality drill, in fact I would suggest that the radial arm drill that I have is not an expensive option but is superb for woodworking but is not really up to drilling large holes in metal. The low end sealey drill will drill a large hole through metal with ease
If rolls Royce phone me up tomorrow and ask me to drill some holes in jet engine parts I may well have to rethink but for now I will happily stick with what I have got.

 

[Trevanion]

If rolls Royce phone me up tomorrow and ask me to drill some holes in jet engine parts I may well have to rethink but for now I will happily stick with what I have got.

Don't be daft! We all know they still use one of these:

 

[Lons]

That reminds me I have an old heavy drill pressy thingy I'll dig it out and post as would like to know more about it.

 

[Lons]

Just to make things quite clear, I am not blowing my Pick up by saying I have 2 pillar drills and most people only have 1.

I wasn't having a go Powertools, I don't think anyone given money and space wouldn't plump for separate machine for several tasks but there's always a limit, Usually it's the missus saying "what do you need one of those for?" No issue for me with my own business but now retired it's harder to justify.
Still got 4 DeWalt cordless drills, 3 large SDS and a concrete breaker along with 2 cement mixers, wacker 2 sets of scaffold towers. I'm stopping there it's embarrassing. #-o

 

[graduate_owner]

I had a NuTool bench drill press, and frankly it was awful. I thought - hey Must be a bargain for £50 brand new, you can't even get a decent motor or chuck for that. Well that says it all really. I was glad to sell it on. I replaced it with an Axminster floor standing hobby drill for £200, reduced from £300 (mainly because I had Axminster vouchers). It is OK, but just OK, with satisfactory run out for wood. If I want accurate holes in metal then I use my milling machine.

If you want accuracy, go second hand or expect to pay upwards of around £400 for a bench drill (Axminster Trade series price)

K

 

[Jacob]

Must be talking about different Nutools. As far as I know the DP16 was about £250 new. Not the cheapest or lowest quality. Mine was £50 2nd hand on ebay and is perfectly OK for woodwork (and light metal work).
Same/similar machine gets sold under different brands such as Draper - they keep swapping and changing to confuse everybody! So I could be wrong.

 

[Bm101]

If rolls Royce phone me up tomorrow and ask me to drill some holes in jet engine parts I may well have to rethink but for now I will happily stick with what I have got.

Don't be daft! We all know they still use one of these:

Not tempted, those days are behind me but out of interest what's that called. That's genius. (hammer)

 

[Lons]

Must be talking about different Nutools. As far as I know the DP16 was about £250 new. Not the cheapest or lowest quality. Mine was £50 2nd hand on ebay and is perfectly OK for woodwork (and light metal work).
Same/similar machine gets sold under different brands such as Draper - they keep swapping and changing to confuse everybody! So I could be wrong.

Mine was def a DP16, 5 speed if I remember and bought new about 12 years ago for £79.95, I probably still have the receipt as it went through the business accounts. Could have been the range was at an end of course when prices are reduced but I don't know that.

 

[Trevanion]

[
Not tempted, those days are behind me but out of interest what's that called. That's genius. (hammer)

It's one of those fandangled ratchet drills that the industrial revolution was built with at half a turn a time! I think they were mostly used in confined spaces and drilling holes where you needed a lot of force, usually in steam engines, boilers and the like.

I suppose they were the mag-drills of their time!

 

[Jacob]

Must be talking about different Nutools. As far as I know the DP16 was about £250 new. Not the cheapest or lowest quality. Mine was £50 2nd hand on ebay and is perfectly OK for woodwork (and light metal work).
Same/similar machine gets sold under different brands such as Draper - they keep swapping and changing to confuse everybody! So I could be wrong.

Mine was def a DP16, 5 speed if I remember and bought new about 12 years ago for £79.95, I probably still have the receipt as it went through the business accounts. Could have been the range was at an end of course when prices are reduced but I don't know that.

Mines 12 speed. They keep changing the specs - it's on as having a no2 morse taper but mine is 1. It is OK though, I'm not making it up!

 

[Lons]

It is OK though, I'm not making it up!

Never suggested you do Jacob, why would you?
We all form opinions of the equipment we buy and use and there are sometimes wide differences between the quality of identical products however in the case of Nutool it seems there are more baduns than gooduns so in % terms more likely to get one that isn't up to the job.

e.g. I bought a Makita mitre saw which I find very capable and accurate while another member on here got one he's not happy with, I looked hard at the Bosch model which gets rave reviews but the one I tried out was terrible.
I have a great car, no issues of any note and I've bought enough in my time to be subjective but a mate with a similar model only 3 months older than mine has a pig and is trading it in for a different make. On that basis he says he'll never buy a MB again.