Suggest A Drill Press

Nomad

I'm currently using my little milling machine for drilling, but it's lacking in two areas: the quill travel is quite short at 30mm, and it's a bit underpowered for stuff like cutting with larger forstner bits (it hasn't popped a fuse yet, but I feel I have to take things slowly, and I'm also a little concerned about wear and tear on the gears).

I'd appreciate suggestions for a bench-top drill press suitable for guitar making as well as general woodwork drilling. Budget around £200 or so, up to maybe £300. I'm not in a rush because the intended bench doesn't exist yet, but will hopefully be in place maybe towards the end of February (so there's some scope for finding something used).

What sort of throat is needed for guitar making? I'm thinking of things like hogging out pickup cavities, and drilling holes for things like bridges.

At first, I was looking at this radial one from Axminster...

http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-hobby-series-ahrd16b-bench-radial-drill-101928

...but the length is too much at 840mm (would overhang the intended bench, which will be against a wall). I also wonder if it's something with too many adjustments at the price, such that accuracy might be compromised.

There's also this Clarke...

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-cdp302b-bench-drill-press-230v/

161mm throat sounds maybe a bit marginal. (Or is it?) Good motor power, 16mm chuck and good quill travel at 80mm. If anything, it's maybe a bit tall at 971mm - the bench top is 920mm, so the belts and pulleys would be quite high up. Is it feasible to shorten the column on these things? There seem to be a few other makes (like Record Power and SIP) that have a similar spec, but the throat depth doesn't really get any bigger.

Thoughts? Any others worth looking at?

Sporky

I'm selling my Draper - 170mm throat which is enough for bridge posts. It's floor standing but you could cut down the column and rack - or mount it through the bench...

thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/90999/assorted-woodworking-machinery-surrey

Even got a nice ply table on it with an insert for sanding drums... and an Axminster keyless chuck.

Nomad

Tempting, @Sporky, but Surrey is an awfully long way from Edinburgh.

Sporky

That's true. And it's very heavy.

I wouldn't go radial unless you need it. Then there are a lot of people selling stuff from the same Chinese factories; some spend a bit of time cleaning up the castings and so on.

Worth looking at Draper, Sealey and Warco too.

Sporky

http://www.tooled-up.com/product/draper-gd16-16ad-16-speed-bench-drill-450w-240v/209266/

Tall, but 169mm throat.

GSPBASSES

I've been using the Axminster drill for about 12 years now, can't fault it. If you do get one, you must bolt to bench.

octatonic

I have an Axminster Trade floor standing model and it has been faultless thus far.

Nomad

Bumping this thread now that I finally have my new machine bench, and I've just had an email from Machine Mart with one of their regular vat-free offers. There are two bench drills in contention.

This one at £199 has a 161mm throat and a round table.

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-cdp302b-bench-drill-press-230v/

And this one at £229 has 180mm throat and a square table...

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-cdp452b-550w-16-speed-bench-mounted-dri/

Both 550W, 16-speed, 16mm chuck, 80mm quill travel, pretty much the same in terms of heights and clearances. I suspect the one with the square table has T-slots, meaning no bolts passing through if I want to fix a larger platform onto it (would need to sort out T-nuts and have the right length of bolts, although that's not a big deal).

Using measurements from the drawing of my current guitar build as a guide, there are no features on that particular design where I might want to hog out material that can't be reached by either drill. The longest stretch is to the middle of the tailpiece at 146mm (I don't need to get to there in this design, but I might in a version with a trem).

Any thoughts on throat depth with regard to guitar making?

Which would you choose and why?

Roland

Nomad said:

Any thoughts on throat depth with regard to guitar making?

If you want to drill string-through holes for a Telecaster then you need at least 15cm throat. This should be sufficient clearance for hogging too. Before I got a floor standing pillar drill I used to clamp my drill stand on top of the guitar body to do this.

For jack sockets the throat clearance is a few centimetres, but the height clearance is about 50cm. This is a bit much for a bench mounted pillar drill, but if you can mount the drill at the end of the bench then you may be able to swing it through 90 degrees, over the end of the bench, to drill jack socket holes, and the long wiring channel which runs from neck socket to bridge pickup.

Nomad said:

Which would you choose and why?

Are you sure that you can’t find space for a floor standing pillar drill, and leave your bench top clear?

Corvus

If you can get to them to try, extend the quill fully down and check for any sideplay; I'd get the one with the least slop, or a different drill, rock-solid old British stuff is in that price range. Any slight play in the bush/bearings gets magnified with quill travel. Some have adjustment for it, some don't.

Nomad

Thanks, chaps. I was leaning towards the 550W one with the 161mm throat, and decided to go and have a look. They only had the CDP202B, which seems to be the same basic machine (less power, different table, same chuck capacity and speeds). I reasoned that it would be representative of the others in terms of how well the quill was put together. Slop was fine with the quill raised, but became noticeable when down the full 80mm. These things have a grub screw and lock nut at the side for taking some of this out, but it's only left/right, and the quill had slop fore and aft as well. Hard to measure how much it deviated from centre, but it didn't feel like something I'd be happy with (my little milling machine is far better - barely detectable, if at all). If I had been able to feel one in the shop that was good, and say that I wanted the display piece, I'd maybe take it, but since I'd be ordering it unseen, I decided not to buy one of these.

Regarding a floor mounted machine, my initial response was going to be that it's going on a bench that's dedicated to machines, so keeping the bench top clear isn't an issue, plus I don't really have the floor space. However, the floorplan of the workshop still has some elements that aren't finalised - the main bench positions are (machine bench, woodwork bench, general purpose bunch), as is the bandsaw. There's also a load of storage which is somewhat temporary at the moment - various floor standing shelf units, and a couple of Ikea box things with plastic storage boxes. The shelves hold various bits of tooling, as well as lumps of guitar-related wood, and the Ikea units are for lots of nick-knacks like finishing stuff, abrasives, polishing stuff, guitar components, soldering gear, less-used tools, etc (basically, mostly boxes of stuff that are used for particular jobs that can be pulled out when needed).

Having looked again at the floorplan, I would say that a floor-standing drill press is feasible. A concern I had was stability (wasn't into drilling into the concrete floor of my flat), but the probable position would back it onto a concrete wall. I can come up with some sort of L-shaped brace in welded steel that screws to the wall, has levelling feet, and to which the drill is bolted. The brace would also allow me to tune the height of the drill if needed by making the bit under the drill some sort of box-shaped frame.

So, I'm looking at the Axminster hobby range drill with 165mm throat and 80mm quill travel...

http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-hobby-series-ahdp16f-floor-pillar-drill-101927

My only experience of their hobby range has been the 10" bandsaw, which has worked very well for me. Any thoughts on this particular drill press? Is the power likely to be sufficient at 375W? I'd imagine the most I'd ask of it is fairly large forstner bits (say, 35mm) into hardwood like beech, maple, oak, and probably drilling quite deep at times. Is the Axminster keyless chuck fine for grip?

Sporky

I have the Axminster keyless chuck on my pillar drill (and did on the previous) and I don't recall any slip.

I'd also not be much worried about 375W - you need to take it slow with big drills anyway or they overheat, so you don't need mad amounts of power.

GSPBASSES

Although the drill you're looking at is very good, I'm not sure if it will cover through body string drilling, the safety I would go for at least 180mm from column to drill centre. This will cover you if you go into the Gibson type building. I have the Axminster drill that there is a link for below and this covers everything your ever need to do on a guitar. I've got the bench mounted one which is fine, but if you can pay the extra then maybe the floor standing one is more versatile. 

http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-hobby-series-ahrd16b-bench-radial-drill-101928

m_c

Unless you're planning on putting very big parts on the drill table, or swinging the head around out of line with the base, floor standing drills are pretty stable. Only time it ever becomes a problem, is when I'm trying to drill holes in the end of 100mm square steel box section, but even if it was bolted down, I wouldn't want to have that kind of weight overhanging the table unsupported.

If you are concerned about it being a problem, you could always bolt the base to a big bit of wood to give it a bigger footprint, without fixing it to the floor.

Nomad

I was looking at the radial version as well, although I'm not sure if have the room for it front to back. Even the minimum of 820mm plus some of the table (about 900mm?) is getting a bit long. If it was set like that, it would have plenty of throat depth, but I find myself wondering if rigidity might start to get compromised. To put it another way, why have the sliding feature at all if it isn't to get better rigidity with shorter throat depths? If there was a need to reduce the throat depth, it would stick out even further. Do you get a noticeable reduction in rigidity at deeper throat depth settings?

What part of Gibson type building needs more than 160mm? On the drawing of the guitar design I have at the moment, the longest reach is about 150mm from the waist to the centre of the tailpiece. All others are shorter.

Nomad

m_c said:

Unless you're planning on putting very big parts on the drill table, or swinging the head around out of line with the base, floor standing drills are pretty stable. Only time it ever becomes a problem, is when I'm trying to drill holes in the end of 100mm square steel box section, but even if it was bolted down, I wouldn't want to have that kind of weight overhanging the table unsupported.

If you are concerned about it being a problem, you could always bolt the base to a big bit of wood to give it a bigger footprint, without fixing it to the floor.

The only big stuff that's likely to go on it would be the stringers for the frame of my future woodworking bench - planning to use cross dowels to fix them, to the legs. They'll be chunky bits of beech - about 120x45, by about 1200 long. However, the intended setup looks like this...

The height adjustable bench can be used to support the long battens (and is occasionally used as an outfeed table for the bandsaw). Can also see here how the radial version is starting to look a bit big (the bench is 750mm deep).

I'll see how it goes with stability. I don't think I'd be happy with just the drill itself, but if it feels like some sort of wooden spreader will work, then I'll do that. Otherwise, I'll come up with some sort of brace as mentioned in a previous post (not fixing it to the floor)

Sporky

Radials always look to me like they're a lot of work to square up.

WezV

when i worked at a school i did all my through body string holes on the big old 70's drill presses they had available.  Great machines, but when you are doing holes that small the drill can still wander.   The results were okay - just like old fenders they were not always perfect

I don't have that option now, and my floor standing drill press doesn't have enough throat depth to do them.  SO i do the outer ones on the drill press and I have a 1" thick template to do the rest (drilled on the press, obviously), i go half way from the front, then meet up from the back using the outer holes to align everything.  I actually get perfect results every time with this method


not sure what i am trying to say, except maybe i wouldn't buy  one with extra clearance just to do a job that can be done other ways... depends how many guitars you are making

GSPBASSES

Sorry, what I should have said, I have my radial drill permanently set 180mm column to centre of the drill, this covers everything I've ever come across in guitar making. If I wasn't buying radial drill, I still think I would prefer something close to 180mm, always best to have a little bit of space in hand. 

Never had a problem with squaring up, but there again it's never taken off square, so once it was set up initially and locked off, that's how it stayed.

Sporky

GSPBASSES said:

Never had a problem with squaring up, but there again it's never taken off square, so once it was set up initially and locked off, that's how it stayed.

At which point I s'pose the advantage is the huge throat depth. Fair enough!

m_c

@Sporky it's not that much hassle. Wind the quill down, put a square between the side of it and the table. Couple taps in whatever direction. Job done.

For woodwork, I wouldn't worry too much about rigidity. If you were trying to sink a big drill through a lump of steel, then I might be concerned, but given that radial drill's minimum speed is 500rpm, you wouldn't be able to use that big a drill bit in steel anyway.