Drill Presses

I am looking for a replacement for a chinese bench drill. It's not bad, provided you can live with spindle runout that can be measured with a yardstick. I'm gonna move on up to a floor model. 18+ inches,

1000- dollars. I have no real heartburn with decent chinese if the quality is ok and the price is good. I'd prefer American, old or new, but price is likely to be a problem on new; and availibility and serviceability a probem on old stuff. I am in the Savannah, Ga area. Any ideas or recomendations? Currently leaning towards "Dayton" brand presses. Seems to be Grainger's house brand. Chinese of course. Any experiences?

Thanks, Ken

This might fill the bill:

Joe Autodrill recommended a particular Grizzley drill press in RCM. As I remember it was a Chinese drill press and cost about 500$. Might be worth searching for that post.

Dan

I checked runout on a couple used Dayton's when I was looking for a second drill press. Wasn't any better than my Harbor Fright.

First rule is to get something with a Morse Taper spindle (versus Jacobs Taper, or (shudder) a spindle with a chuck attachment thread). This will eliminate all the Happy Harry Homeowner wobble-drills, even if the maker is Chinese.

This rule actually is universal. I once spent a few hours at a used machine tool place measuring runout on all the floor drill presses they had, so twenty units if I recall. All the units with other than Morse Taper were terrible, regardless of make and model.

Joe Gwinn

I think the second rule is buying a good drill press chuck. Bench grinders seem to come with poor wheels and drill presses seem to come with cheap chucks. At least it seems true for the less expensive ones.

=20 Dan