Bench Drill Press - Question

[webby962]

Gents,

I know this topic has been covered before, and everyone has their own preference, but I am after some specific advice.
I currently use my lathe for drilling my blanks and other than the faf of moving the tail stock every few cm, it does a reasonably good job, but on sizes above 10mm, I end up with a slight bit of oversize taper on the lead end. This means I either need to make my blanks a cm oversize to try and get a full depth the right diameter, or I sometimes need to fill the gap by the tube with CA and sawdust.

I was considering a bench drill to do the larger blanks, but wondered if the tolerances and 'wobble' on the bit would be worse, better or the same.

Therefore, can anyone confirm if they drill >10mm (Omega and Mistral types) on a particular drill press, and if it works ok? I was looking at about £300... I've heard good things about the Jet JDP13, but they are like rocking horse sh!t to find!

Any advice welcome, and happy new year!

 

[Kardav]

That Jet's only got 50mm quill travel, you'd be better looking for one with about 80mm otherwise you will need to pack your vice up once you reach the end of travel, to drill right through a blank longer than 50mm.

 

[webby962]

Cheers. I wasn't sure about the travel as no one seems to stock it anymore :-( I know the JDP15 has 80mm of travel, although only Axminster seem to do that and their price is way to much for me!

 

[Neil Lawton]

I bought one of these for the teaching space.
Bosch PBD 40 Bench Drill: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools
Very impressed with it so far.

 

[webby962]

Cheers Neil. Have you done >10mm holes and does it give any oversize on the lead? There seems to be some people claiming it can have some wobble up to 0.5mm!

 

[Neil Lawton]

Cheers Neil. Have you done >10mm holes and does it give any oversize on the lead? There seems to be some people claiming it can have some wobble up to 0.5mm!

I've done Omega and Zeta on it with no problem. It is a light weight machine so I'm sure it could be easily abused. It was recommended to me by Scott Walker (SAWES on here), as I needed an easily movable machine with a decent travel (90mm). The 40 bit of the model number refers to the max size wood bit you can use.

 

[webby962]

Cheers Neil. One more question,what vice do you use?

 

[Neil Lawton]

Cheers Neil. One more question,what vice do you use?

At the moment I just use it with a standard machine vice that came with another drill. I do intend to make a jig for work holding, as the whole point of buying it was to show the options for drilling blanks to the students on my beginner day courses.

 

[Penpal]

I bought one of these for the teaching space.
Bosch PBD 40 Bench Drill: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools
Very impressed with it so far.

90mm seems a good throw to me ,when I first came across ads for these I was impressed also by that large wheel control, the dual speed. Good choice IMHO.

Peter.

 

[bigbob]

Thats the drill I use Neil have had it a few years now and can confirm it is up to the job you do not have to change the belts on pulleys and the motor is quite powerful at 710 Watts and it is VS which is handy I found the lazer to be quite accurate too although I do not use it to line up pen blanks as I usually start with a small centre drill after I have marked the blank.

 

[webby962]

Well, looks like the general opinion is good, so I might just take the plunge... thanks all

 

[wm460]

Wasnt there quite a few members that bought them at the time?

 

[Jim]

I like the look of that drill Neil .. May take the plunge with that one my friend ..

 

[Sawes]

I've done Omega and Zeta on it with no problem. It is a light weight machine so I'm sure it could be easily abused. It was recommended to me by Scott Walker (SAWES on here), as I needed an easily movable machine with a decent travel (90mm). The 40 bit of the model number refers to the max size wood bit you can use.

Love the PBD40
Never had an issue drilling for any pen blanks in any material really. A little hard in to aluminium but that was probably more my drill bit choice and lack of lubrication to be fair.
I also to found out that it doesn't really like drilling 100mm holes in 9mm ply but it did it. I did have to leave it to cool for a while afterwards.
I attach picture in which you can see the blank vice I use too.
Never had much luck myself drilling on lathe and much prefer this way.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

 

[webby962]

Thanks everyone. I've just just bolstered Bosch's profits and ordered one :-)

 

[Neil Lawton]

I like the look of that drill Neil .. May take the plunge with that one my friend ..

You can always pop over if you want to try it Jim.