Bench drill press / pillar drill

No specific advice as to make etc, but FWIW:

I had a Lidl/Aldi one for a while - it was decent enough for my purposes. There are very many of similar quality & build around. I ended up selling it and bought a slightly bigger Sealey, mainly because I had a need for the larger height for a particular project.

I would probably look out for a second hand one; if you are not in a rush then keepjng an eye out for an old British one via eBay/Gumtree might work.

One thing to bear in mind is that the chuck on these does not go to zero. I think my Sealey has trouble below 3mm diameter drills. I keep meaning to buy a reducing chuck.

I have *never* moved the belt on the pulleys!

J^n

PS: The most fun power tool I bought in the last ten years was an old but good (Inca) bandsaw. I wish I had bought one years ago...

Most chucks dont "go to zero" (although I have to say that 3mm sounds a bit neanderthal) - which is why the pin chuck was invented

Theres loads of them online, including eBay.

If you have one of those screwdriver / impact driver things you might like to consider one with a hexagonal drive shank - alternatively if your main chuck has 4 jaws then forget it.

I have a small Scheppach bench drill which I bought at Aldi/Lidl which is quite good has good depth drilling, a two speed gearbox with electronic speed control so no changing belts and also has an accurate electronic depth readout. The only bug bear is the chuck which does not have a problem gripping small diameter drills but being hand tightened is a PITA when inserting drills. I keep meaning to get onto Scheppach to change it for a keyed version. The model number is DP60 I paid a lot less than the current advertised price.

Richard

I bought a 2nd hand equivalent of the smallest pillar drill listed on the Clarke website (Clarke CDP102B) the stand/table/quill are steady enough for my needs. The depth gauge isn't all that. Strangely they don't list a price on the website, Machine Mart list it for £120 which seems fair

A 'pin chuck', and yes, it will grip a standard straight pin, though you can't drill much with it.

Nor me, other than to clean and grease occasionally. Not the belt itself. I pretty much only ever drill wood and plastic, and small diameter holes in aluminium. I've never needed a speed below maximum.

It's a cheap Chinese one from B&Q, about £40 about 15 years ago, but has a solid cast iron base, bolted down to my bench. I do also have an old Wolf press which holds a standard size hand drill, but I only use it occasionally if I need to drill several sets of holes with two drill sizes.

The father of the woman next door to us died, and to my surprise, I inherited a Burgess bandsaw and several smaller items. I'd never bought one, because I had no need for one. I used it for the first time the next day... so far, I've gone through three blades and a power switch.

Indeed - as I mentioned, the Sealey is larger than the 'standard' pillar drills from Aldi etc, and the chuck is also correspondingly larger. It might go down to 2.5mm, but not less.

I assume the OP has considered and rejected the various drill guides that can be used with a hand held drill? The cheap & simple ones can at least ensure that drilling is vertical.

On 04 Sep 2026, Joe wrote

(snip for brevity)

Bandsaws look extremely useful, but they've always scared the s*it out of me.

I assume they now have some sort of safety guard, but when I was young the (unguarded) ones looked like the most absolutely lethal thing in the workshop.

Wood turning lathes also have their moments ....

Table/cabinet saws worse, surely?

I think angle grinder chain saw blades win the prize for not actually having any remotely safe use case.

If you want more dangerous usage of angle grinders watch any Youtube/Facebook video where they adapt an angle grinder for other purposes. Make you own table saw from an angle grinder - no problem with a couple of dodgy spot welds and a large blade rated for only 25% of the rotational speed.

The capacity is normally etched on the side of the chuck eg 0-10mm or

On 05 Sep 2026, Andy Burns wrote

You're probably right, but I have a vague recollection of seeing a butcher cutting up frozen legs of something-or-other with a bandsaw when I was fairly young, and suspect that scarred me for life...

I was a bit nervous, having only used a large one under supervision (when I were a lad) before. But now I am much happier with the bandsaw than with a portable circular saw, for instance.

Safety is mainly via proper use of the fence, the use of 'push sticks', and winding the blade guard down according to the thickness of what you are cutting.

I've just come back from a car boot sale with a small chop saw - I have resisted one of these for a long time, but have a small job for which it will be useful. I will be nervous about using that for sure...

J^n

That sounds pretty close to what I need. I'll have to pay a visit to my nearest Machine Mart.

Is it easy enough on drills like these to get the table perfectly flat and stable?

Have to say it looks as though the off switch is designed to be headbutted!

All I need to do initially is to drill vertical holes in the right places - for example, to drill 8mm holes which are 55 mm in from the back of a thick (36mm) piece of board and 62 mm in from the sides. Drill guides look as though they would give me perfectly vertical holes (which would be good) but would not help me accurately locate the holes.

FWIW, I am making wooden 'plates' to go under my hifi speakers so I can convert their number of floor contact points from 4 to 3. The plates need to have through holes which match fairly precisely the locations in the speaker bases where carpet spikes would normally be attached so that I can bolt the plates to the speakers.

As far as I remember, it doesn't have any form of detent at the level position, I've stood a speed-square on the table and lined that up to a drill in the chuck.

I've got one which looks pretty much identical to the Clarke drill cited

- except that it's branded "Rexon", but I imagine that they're all made in the same factory.

Mine has a vertical chuck travel of just under 50mm, which is adequate for drilling through holes in 36mm thick material. The chuck axis is about 130mm from the nearest point of the pillar, so that's fine for drilling holes 55 and 62mm in from the edge of the material.

The first thing I did with mine was to get rid of the guard - it got in the way of everything!

Adjusting the height of the table could be better. If I do the clamp up as tightly as I can with my hands, the table still tends to move downwards when drilling, and to rotate about the pillar. I use a bit of metal tube over it to get a bit more leverage, and then it's fine.

The table can be tilted from side to side - clamped up with a bolt under the table near the pillar. You won't need to move that for what you're doing, but just make sure that the table is parallel with the base, so that the drill axis is perpendicular to the table.

Mine has no drill guides which would be any good for your purposes. In your position, I would measure and mark the hole positions, and use a centre punch to make a conical dent in each position. I would then start with a 4mm drill, lay the material on the table and adjust its position as you lower the drill - it should be fairly easy to get each dent directly under the drill. I would then open up the holes to 8mm in a second pass (or, if using 8mm bolts, drill 9mm holes).