A Tale Of Two Drills

[SKIPRAT]

Are you sitting comfortably good then I will begin my little tale I have had in my possession on of those Asian 5 speed drills I have had it for over 15 years and it has Served me well I must have got a good one as this one drilled straight holes and the Quill was a good fit. Recently I saw that lidil’s had a small bench Pillar drill for sale for around £50 this interested me as this model had 9 speeds 16mm chuck and a 500w motor and my original drill had 5 speeds 13mm chuck and a 350w motor so I went out and bought one what a mistake took it out of the box assembled it drilled a couple of 8mm test holes then found out it did not drill straight and on checking the quill Found out it had about 0.030” play in the quill and the old drill had just a detectable amount of play in the quill I am not a purist but that amount of Play in a new machine is not on .I took a picture of the old and new side by side and Noticed that the general thickness of the castings was a lot thicker on the older machine I was not too happy and decided to let the old one carry on doing it’s job and dismantled the new one it put it back in the box and took it back for a refund. Moral of the story all that glitters is not gold.   



Cheers Paul

[wheeltapper]

your old drill looks exactly like mine.
did you buy yours at B&Q?

cost me about 30 quid I believe.

I was looking at the Lidl one, I'm glad I didn't look for long, now.

Roy

[SKIPRAT]

Hi Roy

Yes it is a B&Q special  although it is 15 years old it still drills straight the main reason i was interested in the Lidil one was it had 9 speeds and the bottom speed was lower than my old one as for the play in the old drills  quill i can grasp it and just feel a slight amount of play no where near the 0.030 that the new one had  so i will carry on using the devil i know.

Cheers Paul

[Dean W]

If I was a mean or crabby person, I would say something like, "Toldja so".
But I'm not... so I won't.

 

[Bernd]

Hey Paul,

Sounds like it's mod-time. Mod it over to a variable speed drive using a tread mill motor and electronics.

You'll have infinate speeds then. 

Bernd

[SKIPRAT]

Hi Dean

Ok i should have realised that i know some of these drills are built a little bit sloppy but to have that much play on the quill is beyond all my imagination anyhow i will put it down to a new learning experience.

Cheers Paul

[SKIPRAT]

Hi Bernd
Sounds like a good idea to me but over on this side of the pond i have not found any treadmill motors about they dont throw them out over here.

[Dean W]

Well, you're a step ahead of me, Paul.  A least you got your money back. 
I didn't have the sense to do that, so have one of these things with .050" runout.
Lovely.

Your old one will see you through.

Dean