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Best Drill Press?


dentedr

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Hey all,

I am looking into adding a drill press to the home tool arsenal for some light duty gunsmithing projects and other around the house projects. Also what model of vise would you recommend?

Looking for some opinions before buying to make sure I don't end up with a pile...

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The best drill press of all is a mill. With that you can put your holes exactly on location and your part is held solidly in place in the mill vise or bolted to the mill table. Of course then you can do a lot more than with just a drill press too. There are lots of low(er) cost bench top mills out there now, Grizzly.com is a good place to get a feel for the variety. If a mill is over the budget, they have some good drill presses too.

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Hello: Look at a lot of different ones. Check the spindle for being tight with no wobble. Some of the old machines are still good after 60-70 years. Some where not good to start with. The drill press I have is actually a Sears model and is still tight as a drum after 15 years. My Bridgeport is the old M head model in 110 volt and a small table. It is from the 1940's and still is great. As for a vice, you will end up buying a couple to do different jobs with. I have 4 for my drill press and 3 monster ones for my milling machine that my dad made 50 years ago. Check Craigs list and the local machine shops to see what's out there locally. You may find a gem for not much money. Thanks, Eric

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Question; I've read a few times in this thread of people making shure there drill press is tight. I'm wondering what does that mean to you?

Clausing is pretty much the industry standard.

I strongly disagree with this. Maybe in your area but the 2 clausings I've had experience on were junk, and nobody in my area uses them. Edited by Can
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Question; I've read a few times in this thread of people making shure there drill press is tight. I'm wondering what does that mean to you?

Clausing is pretty much the industry standard.

I strongly disagree with this. Maybe in your area but the 2 clausings I've had experience on were junk, and nobody in my area uses them.

Ok, not sure what's up with that. Mine works great and and I've had zero issues with it since I bought it about 10 years ago. Also, the local community college here has several that get used pretty much all day every day and no issues.

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Nearly every time you need to drill a hole for gunsmithing it will need to be precisely located. You can do that with a good drill press and a good cross slide vice but by the time you get all that you can nearly buy one of the small bench top mills that will do a much much better job.

If you are thinking you can do some light milling in a drill press forget that idea, drill presses make horrible mills but mills make great drill presses. Even the better drill presses have bearings that aren't designed for side loads so you get a bunch of vibration and excessive tool wear if you try to mill with them. It's tough starting out but no use making the same mistakes many of us including myself have made.

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Nearly every time you need to drill a hole for gunsmithing it will need to be precisely located. You can do that with a good drill press and a good cross slide vice but by the time you get all that you can nearly buy one of the small bench top mills that will do a much much better job.

If you are thinking you can do some light milling in a drill press forget that idea, drill presses make horrible mills but mills make great drill presses. Even the better drill presses have bearings that aren't designed for side loads so you get a bunch of vibration and excessive tool wear if you try to mill with them. It's tough starting out but no use making the same mistakes many of us including myself have made.

Very good advice!

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I would recommend a mini mill over a drill press also. I have been using mine for all sorts of projects.

Their limitation is the Z axis. Not too much working depth.

Edited by dogtired
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Nearly every time you need to drill a hole for gunsmithing it will need to be precisely located. You can do that with a good drill press and a good cross slide vice but by the time you get all that you can nearly buy one of the small bench top mills that will do a much much better job.

If you are thinking you can do some light milling in a drill press forget that idea, drill presses make horrible mills but mills make great drill presses. Even the better drill presses have bearings that aren't designed for side loads so you get a bunch of vibration and excessive tool wear if you try to mill with them. It's tough starting out but no use making the same mistakes many of us including myself have made.

Very good advice!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

http://www.grizzly.com/products/Drill-Mill-with-Stand/G0704, the head can be flipped over for a total of 16 inches of Z. I did it to mine.

If thats too much then http://www.grizzly.com/products/4-x-18-3-4-HP-Mill-Drill/G0781?utm_campaign=zPage

check out this thread for StraightUpOg's amazing work with a mini mill http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=168050

I know he converted to CNC, but it should give you some idea of how versatile that little mill can be. Almost any pistol part can fit in there.

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For anyone who has not made a purchase yet, I would say don't buy a mill drill with a round vertical column. These are subject to major vibrations when trying to mill your part. Much better is a square column one with a dovetail for the head to ride up and down on. Also, on the round ones, every time you move the head up or down, you lose your horizontal index because the head swings around side to side. These seem like minor points until you are actually trying to use the machine, then they become major headaches.

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For anyone who has not made a purchase yet, I would say don't buy a mill drill with a round vertical column. These are subject to major vibrations when trying to mill your part. Much better is a square column one with a dovetail for the head to ride up and down on. Also, on the round ones, every time you move the head up or down, you lose your horizontal index because the head swings around side to side. These seem like minor points until you are actually trying to use the machine, then they become major headaches.

Agreed, get a square column version.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

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" the head can be flipped over for a total of 16 inches of Z. I did it to mine"

Can you provide more details please?

He got 18.5 of Z, I don't remember why but i ended up with 16.

This is just for the G0704/BF20 machines as far as I know. I had read about this mod before I bought the machine so I did it as part of the initial disassemble and clean. Also slotted out the table for a little more Y while I was in there. I eventually converted to CNC but even as a manual machine the extra travel was great. Obviously some rigidity is lost at the extreme height of travel, but I don't cut while its up there. It's great for tool clearance though.

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