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Select and buy a drill press now and start writing your tips and tricks down!  You can do so many projects its incredible.

Select and buy a drill press

Finally I can drill a straight hole!  My portable drill is great, but when I need to drill a straight hole or want to drill two holes, through two pieces of material, and make them come out straight, you just can't do it with out a drill press.  Plus you can turn a drill press into many tools.  A small drum sander, a sharpening stone, a milling machine!  I sharpened my lawn mower blade with my drill press!  Granted according to the instructions your pushing the envelope by putting "side loads" on the spindle.  But the company that sold me my drill press also sells a milling table to go with it!  Talk about side load!  You can see my drill press to the right.  At it`s base is my drill press vise, which I use to drill angled holes and hold small material.  You can tilt the drilling table itself but on my machine it`s pretty inconvenient, you have to loosen a bolt.  The real inconvenience is making sure the table is square when you're done drilling angles.  There is a locking lever on the top left side of the machine.  This the variable speed feature which lets you change spindle speed just by sliding this lever while the drill press is running.  On the typical drill press you have to shut it down and shift a couple belts around to change spindle speed.

With the floor standing models you can bore into the end of longer materials, materials 3 feet long or more.  Simply swing the table to the side, lock it, and then use it to clamp the material to.  Yes the drilling table swings around on a floating rack and pinion setup used to raise and lower the table conveniently.  Of course then you always lock the table in place.

It`s remarkable how the drilling chuck and spindle is held in place.  The chuck and spindle simply have a tapered steel shaft that fits into a tapered steel collar in the drill press head.  Whack the spindle from below with a rubber mallet to lock it into the drill press head.

I'd strongly recommend a floor standing model, they only cost slightly more and tie up a lot less space in your shop.  I was lucky and got a variable speed model from Sears on a closeout sale.  You can usually do most your drilling at a slow speed so a non-variable speed model is OK too.  But for some things I do, a very high speed is useful.

Some sample machines.  Most drill presses do have adjustable speeds by shifting a belt position.

Perhaps the models above can help get you started selecting your own drill press.  One nice thing about mail order is you can usually avoid your state's sales taxes, of course you do have to pay shipping.  I'd guess shipping might be $80 or so for one of these machines.

Hope this helped,

Topic: Select and buy a drill press now and start writing your tips and tricks down!