Benchtop drill press
- Thread starter obdoor
- Start date
E
ericbuggeln
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I considered the General that they sell at Woodcraft, but i didnt get the job it was for. The floor model is only like $50 more. The Woodpeckers table fits it too, Eric
bonesbr549
Member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2008
- Messages
- 542
obdoor said:
Ok, you will need to define what you consider quality and 2nd what budget. For me I've had a few benchtops and most were junk, if run-out is an issue. There are precision benchtops but the $$ can get up quick but then if you are festool, you would not blink
To measure quality, i'd look at run-out. Get a mag base with a dial caliper attached and measure in two places the shaft and put a router bit in the chuck and measure at the point about 3/4" below the chuck final contact point on the bit. I use a router bit because i know that shaft is true. If at the chuck it's in great shape (fractional thou), then you are in luck. If not, then if at the quill shaft, its strait, you can replace the chuck with a good one (again not cheap, but an ocasional find on e-bay is possible), you could have a decent setup. I find however that most of the cheap import junk avail today has huge run-out isssues +/- .004. If you only want an ocasional hole and precision is of no issue, any of the box store jobs will do, if your bud is less than a hundred. I gave away two before going to a floor model with a decent jacobs chuck and a regular morse taper. Even at that i'm running +/- .0015. I'm looking to put in a keyless jacobs precision chuck that alone is almost as much as the benchtop was at $200. 
