Interesting. I tend to use some water when cutting ceramics and a slow speed helps to not throw it around.
Only thing I drill at high speeds is PCBs using tungsten drills. But then my drill press for that is single speed anyway.
Thanks for giving everyone the benefit of your expert advice. And I'm glad you've finally learned something.
There is also the odd task where having two machines can be useful, an example could be cleaning the threads of a large bolts that you may wish to reuse such as when repairing a large wooden gate.
Fix the bolt gently in the pillar drill and as it (relatively) slowly rotates use a wire brush in your ordinary drill to clean it.
G.Harman
I'm really talking about drilling ceramic faceplates (blank flush wallplates) We make up our own outlets for 'media' use. I think the only reason I use a fast speed is to compensate for the very light pressure I use (in terms of the time it takes). I guess light pressure plus slow speed would be fine but life is short.
Bill
I use mine on the slowest speed when spooling cable.
Bill
Winding solder from my big reel to the dispenser here. ;-)
Ceramic face plates? You must do some very upmarket work. ;-)
I use some but not all of the "gears" on mine. Usually when moving from wood drilling where a higher speed is more useful, to something like drilling cast iron or stainless (or wood but with a large diameter cutter) where slower/more torque is more useful.
I bought one from Lidl recently and that was even cheaper and came with a vice. It fits drills with a 'standard' body immediately behind the chuck 43mm (IIRC) in diameter.
Can't comment oh how good it is because, having recently moved the garage is packed with stuff and I can't easily get to the workbench yet!
If there is a Lidl near you that has some unsold stock that hasn't been cleared out for Christmas stuff, you might still be lucky.
I do - fast for small bits, slow for large ones..
43mm
I have a small cheap bench drill that I picked up on eBay for about £20
- it works just fine for the small stuff that I do with it. I also have a drill stand that is useful for different things - as well as taking a hand-held drill (I used it just the other day to remove a broken bolt using a left-handed drill bit - how many cheap bench drills do reverse?) I also have a little router that fits the collar, in which I can use carbide cutters for really hard or awkward stuff (like drilling holes at an angle to the face of a work-piece, where a drill might wander off).
Has yours got some easy way of changing speeds?
Remove cover (one screw), slacken tension bolt, move belt from larger to smaller pulley, move belt from smaller to larger pulley, apply tension and tighten bolt, replace cover. SOP for this sort of machine, doesn't take long. Of course I'd like a big one with three sets of pulleys, but I just couldn't justify it in terms of space or cost or use. The modern ones with electronic speed control don't appeal as much. :-)
Yep. Although I sometimes forget to say 'Your Majesty'.
Bill
Mine has a middle pulley on a swinging arm. You can go from frighteningly fast to ludicrously slow.
Bill
Yup same on mine. Top cover is just held with a spring latch and is just pulled open when required. Takes slightly longer if you need to shift both belts or change the order of them.
Mine is the same. I really couldn't be bothered doing that every time I changed a drill size. Hence leaving it on slow all the time.
My first pillar drill was a B&Q cheapy. Such a small motor easy to stall it when using say a hole saw. Even on the slowest speed. Have a Lidl one now with a much more powerful motor which is fine for my sort of stuff.
Where do you get them from?
Mine has a two speed gear selector as well as the stepped pulley blocks. Some apprentice must have changed speeds without waiting for the quill to stop as it came to me at scrap value. The gears are plastic fibre Tufnol/Paxolin? and the millwrights shop hobbed two replacements in exchange for two packs of cigarettes! after I supplied them with turned blanks. I have yet to need the backup:-)
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