New Drill Press / Pillar Drill

Drill Press / Pillar Drill

Here’s another purchase to be added to the workshop, a cheap pillar drill / bench drill press to easily allow me to drill vertical holes exactly where I want them.

Here are my initial thoughts after opening and assembly:-

Pros

• Looks good.
• Reasonable price.
• Had lots of positive reviews online.
• Cast iron base for stability and durability.
• Not very loud.

Cons

• Unable to fit a socket over one of the nuts to secure the column to the base as it was too close to the main column and the holes didn’t line up between the base and the column.
• The instructions where somewhat lacking, they didn’t mention how to attach the drill guard and depth stop at all.
• After attaching the chuck (as per the instructions), I then had to remove it again (which was not easy!) to attach the drill guard and depth stop which they failed to mention in the instructions.

Usage

After using the drill a couple of times to test it out to see how it performs, I came to the conclusion somethings not quite right.

Drilling a hole into an inch thick piece of scrap wood, I realised the hole wasn’t vertical, after measuring it I found it was out by about 2 degrees!.

Note: You can test for vertical by drilling a hole in some scrap, then remove the drill bit from the drill and insert the shaft into the hole you just drilled, then check for vertical with a square, then rotate the scrap 90 degrees and check again, this checks the vertical from left to right and then from front to back.

So, knowing the problem, I tried to resolve it by inserting some shims between the base of the column and the base plate, this resolved one of the issues to a certain extent, but seemingly no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to exactly 0/90 degrees.

To try and level the work plate, I created a plywood table to sit on top of it, which I could attach a fence and stop blocks to as required at a later date.

Checking the front to back angles using the above method, I found that too was out by degrees, to try to correct this, I added another plywood base under the first with a shim at the front edge to tip the table back a little to correct for the difference, this partly resolved the issue, but in doing so, caused the first ‘fix’ to then be thrown out by a few points of a degree again.

Conclusion

At this point, I decided it just wasn’t meant to be. I realise it wasn’t the most expensive drill in the world, but surely if you’re buying a pillar drill / bench press drill, no matter the cost, it should still fulfil it’s primary purpose… to drill accurate vertical holes!, anything else on top of that is just a gimmick or nice to have.

Sadly, this particular drill, is now on it’s way back to where it came from… back to reading all the online reviews I guess for a replacement. 😦