Bench Drill

[raynerd]

Hi, just a quick one. Having a small X2 mill I`ve always used this for most of my drilling but as I start to work more accurately I`ve wondered if for non-critical holes it may be worth purchasing a cheap bench drill. They can go from 20-40 on ebay for one of those generic 5 speed drills like the one attached. I just think it would save use of the mill from the less challanging jobs and perhaps even a little quicker to set up since the mill is often setup and is a pain to change around.

Does anyone have one of these or similar?

[Stilldrillin]

Chris,

One of those, was the first home engineering machine I bought, prior to retiring. (Hence Stilldrillin).

When the X2 arrived, the drill went under the bench. Where it stayed for over 12 months, until it was sold to David Curtiss.....

I don`t miss it. Yet!

David D

[andyf]

Yes, Chris, I've got one. OK for rough woodwork. The quill is a rattling fit in the head casting, and if you put any appreciable pressure on the drill via the capstan, something (the column, I guess) bends visibly, so the hole you drill may not be perpendicular to the table.

Andy

[raynerd]

ahh lol....so not that useful for the home metal workshop!

[Brass_Machine]

I have one Chris. I don't really use it for drilling anymore. I use it to polish stuff now so...

Eric

[raynerd]

Eric, probably taking this down a different route now and  but what setup do you use it with for polishing?

[krv3000]

HI i got a bench drill from a boot sale for £5 its from machen mart and its ok as i dont have a mill its all ways on the go
not had any problems with it

[Dean W]

I have one of those, Chris.  It's very poorly made, but you can do, like you say, "non-critical holes" with it.  
I got mine new, and paid $50 US for it with free shipping.  It's not worth that much money, but if you can find
one for half that, you won't be bit too badly.

Brand new, mine had over .050" runout in the spindle.  I think if you took it apart and sold all the pieces, it
would be worth more than as a drill press.  Still, it's small enough to fit in my tiny shop, and good enough
for drilling holes if I don't care about them being exactly where I want them.  

Pick one up cheap, know that it is what it is, and you can save time drilling things like clearance holes or
ventilating sheet steel and wood over using your mill all the time.
If you don't expect much, you won't be disappointed.

Dean

[Lew_Merrick_PE]

I have one of those, Chris.  It's very poorly made, but you can do, like you say, "non-critical holes" with it.  
I got mine new, and paid $50 US for it with free shipping.  It's not worth that much money, but if you can find
one for half that, you won't be bit too badly.

Brand new, mine had over .050" runout in the spindle.  I think if you took it apart and sold all the pieces, it
would be worth more than as a drill press.  Still, it's small enough to fit in my tiny shop, and good enough
for drilling holes if I don't care about them being exactly where I want them.  

Pick one up cheap, know that it is what it is, and you can save time drilling things like clearance holes or
ventilating sheet steel and wood over using your mill all the time.
If you don't expect much, you won't be disappointed.

Dean,

A) Check out the chuck.  It may be most of the problem.  A $30-$50 chuck may change your view.

B) Check out the bearings.  They may be the rest of the problem.

I bought my mill/drill back in the mid-1970's.  It had been dropped off a loading dock and was broken.  I paid $5 for the scrap mill/drill and $10 for the guy with the truck to drive it back to my home.  A "magician level" welder friend of mine welded up the broken castings.  I took it to a butcher friend of mine and alternated it between his -25°F freezer and sitting in front of the hot-air outlet from his compressor for a couple of months.  I scraped in the ways and reset the column (it was out of true by more than .015/ft -- and it was more than a decade before I discovered that such mis-alignment is common with mill/drills).  The spindle was rebearinged with ABEC 5 bearings.  Trav-A-Dials gotten for free from a shop that was changing over to DRO's completed the work.

I routinely make master-plates for drilled hole sets where each hole is located within ų.001 of the basic dimensions.  ±.005 surface to surface in milling requires no real effort -- and I can hold ±.002 with only common care.  I have held ±.00025 on surfaces, but that was heroic -- something only attempted because schedule was closing in.

Yes, I spent a couple hundred hours scraping things in to get the axis truly square.  (Having access to an NBS-qualified laser-square makes the job a lot easier.)  Yes, I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 (1973) on bearings.  Yes, I have spent another $150 or so over the years buying good collets and chucks.  At the time, my time was much less valuable to me than the $$$ it would have cost to buy that level of accuracy.

[Brass_Machine]

Eric, probably taking this down a different route now and  but what setup do you use it with for polishing?

Hi Chris,

I went to the local hardware store and got several buffs and polishing compounds. Use it as a vertical polishing machine. I was primarily using it to polish the kickstands I was making. I will try to get some pictures this weekend if I can.

Eric

[Dean W]

Dean,

A) Check out the chuck.  It may be most of the problem.  A $30-$50 chuck may change your view.

B) Check out the bearings.  They may be the rest of the problem.

Good grief.  When I say it has .050" runout in the spindle, I mean it has .050" runout in the spindle.
Nothing wrong with the bearings.  Typical Chinese mediocre quality, and the chuck is fine.  Those people can
actually make a HALF decent chuck. 
It would be foolish to spend  $50 on a chuck for this thing, though.

I have no idea what the rest of the bla-bla-bla in your post has to do with these junk bench drill presses,
except to once again, talk about one's self.

[Lew_Merrick_PE]

Good grief.  When I say it has .050" runout in the spindle, I mean it has .050" runout in the spindle.
Nothing wrong with the bearings.  Typical Chinese mediocre quality, and the chuck is fine.  Those people can
actually make a HALF decent chuck. 
It would be foolish to spend  $50 on a chuck for this thing, though.

In other words, you are saying that there is .050 runout between the journals of your spindle and the (I assume) MT bore.  ???

Some not inconsiderable portion of that can be the bearings.  I am no longer surprised by such things -- especially in Chinese machine.  I may be amazed by such things, but I am no longer surprised.  I honestly cannot tell you how many Chinese "bearings" I have seen that will run with visible "wobble."  It was worth suggesting.

Similarly, I have seen Chinese (and Russian) "chucks" with more than .075 runout.  It was worth suggesting.  Many people chuck up a pin and measure their runout -- a pretty good measure as that is what your work will "see."  That was not an irrational assumption.

My "talk about one's self" had to do with "suggesting" that, if the basic machine was worth saving, it often can be reworked into a much better machine.  The "issue" is the difference between spending one's own "personal capital" (i.e. time) and cash.  Spending two month's worth of full-time employment to salvage a cheap machine is irrational -- unless you have no alternative.  Most of us have "been there" at various times in our lives.

[fluxcored]

I have one Chris. I don't really use it for drilling anymore. I use it to polish stuff now so...

Eric

I have two - I cannot really comment on the effectiveness of them in drilling holes in metal. Faired OK when I drilled 2 holes in a wooden knife handle I made a few months ago.

The one's primarily used for polishing and sanding.

The other one will probably be stripped and reincarnated as a tapping stand and remaining bits as some kind of tooling for the lathe.

I wish I had a mill!

[raynerd]

OK...well just to let you know, after reading the replies and considering most are being used as tapping stands, buffers or wood drills, I decided this wasn`t really going to do what I wanted for and so decided against one of these small bench drills.

I`ve gone for a big boys drill press    Managed to pick one up rescued from the scrap heap by a local model engineer and got it cheap. I collect it tomorrow evening

   tomorrow.

Chris

[Dean W]

Good going, Chris.  It'll be nice for you,  having a dedicated driller.

[raynerd]

Ain`t life just strange at times! I`ve been looking to pick one of these bench drills up for a good while now but using my mill I`ve always put my money into other tooling. The day I posted the original message, I decided to go and buy one. Obviously, your posts put me off so I decided all together not to bother with a drill. A day later, I was offered a big 3 phase pillar drill, at very little cost, which I picked up last night and is currently waiting to be assembled in my workshop. And totally spooky, I hadn`t mentioned a word to my brother-in-law or anyone in my family, he rings me up this evening to tell me he has picked up a "good quality" bench drill, it is mine for nothing and I just have to collect it tomorrow. Aquiring so many drills in such short notice, looks like I have a drill fetish...   Looking forward to seeing what it is!!!!
I like new toys 

[cidrontmg]

Soon you will be able to drill with both hands (and drills) at the same time... 
And just make holes for the fun of it, even in places they“re really not needed...