Pillar drill buying advice

SpoonsbySven · 22 May 2015

Hi Folks,
I’ve recently had a loan of a mate’s pillar drill. It’s always been an item on my “wish list”, but it wasn’t until I actually had one in the workshop that I realised how much I would use it.
So I’m on the lookout for one, but I have a few questions relating to the minimum “decent” spec I should be looking for. Space limitations dictate a benchtop model, I think.
I’ve seen Trigaar’s post and the helpful replies re his £90 pillar drill question, https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/should-i-buy-a-90-pillar-drill-t63228.html and Henton49er’s on “which pillar drill should I buy” https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/which-bench-pillar-drill-should-i-buy-t55691.html, so I am leaning towards getting an old British-made model. Just waiting for something to come up within a decent distance, and thought I’d do some research in the meantime.
I know that it all depends on what I’m going to be doing with it, so I guess I’d say I do (and would like to do) a range of DIY stuff, from jigs, drawers, cabinets, to larger stuff like benches, beds etc. Also some metalwork, eg barbecue, apple press etc. I don’t envisage needing to drill through much more than 10mm steel…
1. Depth of travel: I know that on cheaper models, this is restricted to as low as 50mm. That sounds like a PITA to me, but what’s a “decent” depth of travel, and what’s the range out there?
2. Throat: from what I can gather, around 300mm is standard-ish. Is this correct?
3. Height: for bench-mounted models, are they all in the same ballpark?
4. Size of motor: again, what’s the minimum?
5. Speed range: 5 speeds sounds like enough to me, but what's the minimum RPM I should look for if I'm drilling into steel? Advice seems to have ranged from as low as 100RPM to 380 or so.
6. Finally, having said that I’m leaning towards an old British-made model, I’ve seen a good number of Nu-Tool, Naerok and other cheaper makes go for £50 ish. While I don’t doubt that a decent drill will be better, I wonder whether, for my purposes, I’d notice the difference. I’ve been bodging along with a decent battery drill for 10 years or so… I’d be interested to hear from any owners of other makes of drills on their experience.
Any comments gratefully received.
Cheers,
Sven

rafezetter · 22 May 2015

I bought the lidl offering by Parkside a few months back - despite being sold for only £50 it has a 3yr warranty; a 500w motor (instead of 375 which seems more common for budget machines) with speeds from 500 >2500rpms, and it might very well be an induction motor as it's very quiet even at 2500, the pulleys make more noise than the motor. Throw is only 50mm but using spadebits and augers I just raise the platform and keep going. Throat is 180mm to the moveable platter and 300mm to the base platter. Personally I've found this a little restrictive as using long auger bits don't leave much room (so I'm having a longer support pillar made to spec) so apart from that it's a dandy machine and far more useful than I imagined. Oh and it's german made, not a chinese PoS.

I think the larger motor helps with things like drum sanding, as I've not noticed any slowdown when I've done it; which co-incidentally is about the only time I got up to 2500 rpms, almost all other tasks are done with the 500rpm which seems to be slow enough for good metal drilling without worrying about work hardening the area while fast enough to avoid it snatching the cut and stopping dead.

My only minor gripes with this machine is the 50mm throw and throat - but they are more to do with the things I do than the machine itself.

The moveable platter doesn't tilt in 2 axis either just side to side - just in case that is a requirement.

Whether this machine is indicative of similar specced ones I have no idea, but if this one died, I would definitely buy another for smaller benchtop work.

Hth

deema · 22 May 2015

Having gone up through a number of drills to my present beast, from personal experience I can say that you will definitely notice a big difference between a cheap drill and a quality Meddings or similar drill. Like most things in woodworking you will never regret buying the biggest, heaviest machine that meets your space and portability criteria.

Startrite, Meddings, Fobco are all bullet proof, brilliant, hold their value, desirable and shirt after for good reason. At the moment woody stuff on the auction WEB sites seems to fall into too camps, very low prices compared to normal and extraordinary prices being achieved. I recently bought a new pedestal drill that was ridiculous cheap, and see another member of this forum picked up two Fibcos for very little.

heimlaga · 24 May 2015

For drilling metal regularly a gear head drill press is by far the best. I have a 1970-ies Arboga G2508 with 8 speeds and morse 3 taper which allows me to drill up to 32 mm holes in mild steel. I like it a lot. It is excellent for metalwork but it would be way overkill for most woodworkers. Arboga and Solberga and Strands were three reputable Swedish makers of this kind of drillpresses. They usually turn up secondhand for 400-1000 euros around here. I don't know what brands and models you can find in Britain.

If you are going to occasionally drill smaller holes in metal (up to 15 or maybe even 20 mm diametre) you could make do very well with a belt driven drill press if it is solid enough. There were several good old British makers to choose between but I don't think any of the chineese ones would be good enough. Anyway it should have quill with morse 2 or preferably morse 3 taper so that you can use proper drills for metal. 13 mm is in my oppinion the absolute maximum drill size that can be held in a chuck when drilling metal. Had I known what I know now I would have bought drills with morse tapers från 11,5 mm and upwards and not from 13 mm and upwards as I did.

Big drills for metal are very expensive new but they often rurn up secondhand in more or less botched condition. I have put togeter a set ranging from 13-31 mm with 0,5 mm steps missing only two sizes which I haven't found yet. That took me 4 years of looking at local flea market and secondhand dealers. Cost per drill 5-20 euros. All those have needed sharpening but dad taught me how to do it by eye on a bench grinder.

Actually I was going to buy a small belt driven drill press but a friend who is a welder and machinist by trade convinced me to get the Arboga. He told me that once people start to work iron the projects start to grow in size and number. Looking back he was right.

SpoonsbySven · 28 May 2015

Thanks very much for the advice, gents.
I'll keep looking for a decent make within a reasonable travelling distance.

Anyone got any comments on Ajax drills? Do they fall into the "cheap rubbish" or "decent" category?
Cheers,
Sven