Drill Press

[gregj]

What are the advantages of a radial drill press? Is it worth paying more for? When would you use that feature? Anybody out there have major regrets about NOT having this feature?

Thanks.

[bridger]

it depends ; )

if you're talking about one of the ones with the drill head on a "T" fitting, like:

they have too much slop and flex and are a pain to index for any kind of precision work. the main advantage is the extra swing, but the price in accuracy is too high, in my opinion.

if you're talking one of the unidrill clones, like:

then you are getting into the range of decent machines.

it all depends what your needs are.....

[gregj]

What do you think of Oscillating drill press?

[bridger]

for occasional spindle sanding it could be ok, but there are a number of light duty OSSes on the market that will outperform it for not too much money.

[David]

Anybody out there have

absolutely NOT. There are several downsides to HAVING the feature :)

Dave

[CW]

[bridger]

now we're talking!

the shipping alone on that machine is twice what the griz uniclone retails for....

[Patrick Conroy]

"CW" wrote in news:%wwOe.454$ [e-mail]:

And I thought Wilton just made cheap QuikGrip knockoffs...

[Phisherman]

[Prometheus]

I'd bet they kick a** for weldable steel tubing and angle iron, but don't do much better when it comes to drilling wood. If you drill metal, it's nice if the bit backs off to break the chip on it's own, which only requires a little oscillation (IE the peck drill cycle on a CNC mill.) It'd be nice for forsner bits *if* the oscillation was great enough to clear the entire hole each time it cycled, but I'd be really surprised if that was the case.

My guess would be that it's intended to be a metalworking drill press, and the feature is geared towards that. Of course you *can* use it for wood, but it hardly seems worth an extra investment.