Pillar drill recommendations required

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Melvb

Melvb

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8 Jun 2011
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Location
Barnsley
Now looking for a floor pillar drill. I know most will say Fobco, Meddings, Startrite second hand, but I want a single phase drill now not after watching ebay for 12 months in the hope one comes up at an affordable price not too far away, remember a 100 miles away costs £35 to £40 for a car round trip, or having to spend 6 months renovating it before I can use it (i dont have enough time for playing with wood and metal as it is).

Need it for:
Wood, sawtooth bits upto 50mm, plugcutters, etc
Metal, plastics, twist drills from 1mm upto 13mm, countersinks, spotface cutters

needs to be low runout/bearing/quill play for the metals (model engineering) and plug cutters
needs fair bit of power for the wood
needs lowish speeds for metals
needs highish speeds for small drills

Looking at (with cheapest prices found):
Record DP58P, 1hp - £407 + 16miles - Dixon Hall
Axminster AT2801FDP, 550W - £389.94 + £0 p+p - Axminster
Jet JDP-17F, 1000W - £479.99 + £7.14 p+p - machinery4wood.co.uk
Warco 2F, 750W - £430 + £0 - Warco
SIP 01436, 750W - £429.95 + £0 p+p - Toolstoday

then there are the others that may or may not be cheaper better/lesser quality - Sealey, Draper, ...

Any recommendations and advice gratefully accepted, remember I'm a Yorkshireman, and also have other things I need to spend money on (no not the Mrs!), so price IS an object, but so is quality.
Melv
 
Any of those will do they all come from china. My second hand meddings was plug and go and will still be going long after i have gone
 
I know I am ignoring everything you said about old drills but there's a big drilll just down the road from you in Doncaster on the bay, £200 no bids finishes in less than 2 hours. I've got a floor standing Startrite Mercury that has no movement in the quill and cost me £50, never done anything to it. I also have a radial drill which is badged by everyone that sells for around £200 and the quill moves at least 20 thou on extension. I am guessing you need to spend quite a bit on a drill to get something as good quality but as you say it depends how quick you want it.
 
Not a floor standing drill but I picked up a startrite mercury bench drill up for £130.00 from auction. Big bonus was the Bison quick change chuck. Single phase as well.
 
A £400 budget seems like serious money to me and impatience might well cost you when your purchase doesn't perform well enough.

I'd certainly be happy to spend £50 on fuel or a carrier for an older model, most of which will need little or no refurbishment as they're built like brick netties.

My modern (ish) Meddings cost me £160 inc a free compressor and a drill vice and it's superb.

Not what you want to here but just my twopennerth.

Bob
 
Having had a Record DP85P All I can say is DO NOT BUY THIS DRILL!!! Absolute rubbish. It's no better than any old drill press attachment to put your Black and Decker in, but possibly worse. If any of the ones you've mentioned are similar DON'T BUY THEM!! Total rubbish for the money. Wobbles like a yacht in a hurricane, the table's made out of cheese and the depth stop is usable but only just. The manual even says "for wood use only". So don't even bother trying to drill metal with it. I think ours was delivered with a broken stop start switch. If it's delivered with a good one it'll break within days. (Bitter...me?).
 
wizard":35sawwmd said:
Don’t try and put him off let him find out the hard way
Click to expand...

Awe c'mon wizard :lol:
Got to at least offer advice and opinions then it's up to the OP to take it or leave it. Even if as in this case it seems he's already decided the best route doesn't suit his needs.
 
Thanks for the advice, the old is not ruled out, I wanted opinion on the new as I can get that quicker and easier (delivered). Second hand almost always requires colection, which requires time and a vehicle, both of which I have limited access to. No decision has been made on old/new, I am on a fact finding mission at the moment, which is why I asked the question of those that are/may be better informed than me.

RossJarvis - just what I was looking for, personal experience of a particular drill, that rules out the Record.

Chinese does not just mean cr4p for everything, it might for drills I dont know. People dont seem to think the Harvey Industries (Xcalibur) table saws are cr4p but they are made in China. I dont have easy opportunity to view the new drills, which I why I asked on here for people who have experience of them.

I am monitoring Ebay for the old, most are bench, miles away - not all (before some jumps in on that). I suppose 3 phase is possible, I would have to factor in the price of an inverter, it would however give me the wider speed range than the limited speed range some of these drills have.

Anymore personal experience of particular models would still be appreciated.

Wizard - the very reason I asked the question is so I dont have to learn the hard way like you did, maybe you should have done more research before your purchase.

Melv
 
I have a bench mounted startrite drill with variable speed Quite a large distance twixt chuck and table
You can have that for 250 £

Or a floor mounted startrite with 2 speed gearbox and 4 speed belt change plus variable speed with a longer column than standard yours for 600

Ian
 
My father always used to say if you can't buy the best, buy the best you can afford. Unfortunately this is no longer as true as it once was. I've paid good money for piles of excrement, and paid next to nothing for tools that did the job they were bought for and many more besides : sometimes the cost has to be balanced with projected usage. Where new machines and power tools are concerned, you may pay good money for rubbish, but you're highly unlikely to pick up very much that's any good cheaply.
 
hi melv
speaking personally i would only consider older british built machinery when it comes to the likes of drills , metal lathes etc
i have a couple of old ( not that old - 1976) ajax pedestal drills when you try to pick these up you can really tell the difference compared with anything you could purchase new now - they are really solid.
dont forget if you pick up a 3 phase machine you dont need to go down the inverter route, you could just swap the motor for a single phase very easily.
best of luck
paul-c
 
RossJarvis":32fkhdl3 said:
Having had a Record DP85P All I can say is DO NOT BUY THIS DRILL!!! Absolute rubbish. It's no better than any old drill press attachment to put your Black and Decker in, but possibly worse. If any of the ones you've mentioned are similar DON'T BUY THEM!! Total rubbish for the money. Wobbles like a yacht in a hurricane, the table's made out of cheese and the depth stop is usable but only just. The manual even says "for wood use only". So don't even bother trying to drill metal with it. I think ours was delivered with a broken stop start switch. If it's delivered with a good one it'll break within days. (Bitter...me?).
Click to expand...


Yep that just about sums it up, its trash!
 
You'll be pleased to know I have bowed to your experience and advice (sorry Wizard) and bought a very reasonably priced single phase Medding LF2 floor pillar drill in Wakefield, from photos. It has a dodgy motor, and a fair bit of rust. Worst case a new motor but it would not surprise me if it's just the centrifugal switch on the starter windings. Obviously it doesn't fullfil my no renovation criteria, but it was a damn sight less (even if it needs a new motor) than the £400 I may have spent on a "new" drill.

Ian thanks for your offers but I obviously decline.

Thanks to the rest of you for bringing me to my senses. I always was a buy British person, and I am disappointed at the demise of UK manufacturing (no political debate please!) but I now work in the computer industry where buy British just is not possible, and also all new reasonably priced tooling is not British - have you seen the cost of a new Meddings.

Melv
 

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