Strange Drill Press

Never seen one of these:

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Anyone know the model number or specs? Price seems ok.

TIA

Reply to
Howard Beal
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Both well known brands if I were closer I'd buy them both at that price!

Reply to
L Fisk

Grizzly is pretty common - I think they were originally Indian imports, but now mostly Chinese or Taiwanese - but pretty decent tools.

I'm not familliar with the Powermatic brand, but it appears it comes in as a "semi-assembled kit", that can usually be made into a decent woodworking tool with some effort. Doesn't look like a good choice for a machine shop environment from what I've seen on the 'net.

Reply to
clare

That's what i was thinking. Gonna take a look at them tomorrow. I am fascinated with the powermatic, i never seen a drill press with a digital speed indicator on the front.

Best Regards Tom.

Reply to
Howard Beal

I found a manual for the powermatic, a woodworking machine for shure. Seems to be a very noisey machine, 90db@40" without a load.

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Best Regards Tom.

Reply to
Howard Beal

Apparently they are FAR from accurate - just a "gizmo"

Reply to
clare

Grizzly are re-badged imports. Usually decent stuff. Powermatic is an old name in woodworking equipment. They are now under the same company who owns Jet tools.

Reply to
Steve W.

I own half a shop's worth of Grizzly power woodworking tools and love them. Great value. Buy 'em, tune 'em up, and use 'em for decades.

Powermatic is a well-known and loved brand in the woodworking community, too.

You'd have to see the specs to know if these would work well doing metal-related chores, though.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

In other words, semi assembled Chinese kits.

Reply to
clare

Exactly. And that's not a bad thing. My Griz 18" bandsaur came in 3 boxes. One contained the stand, another the main saw portion, and the motor was in its own box. It took about an hour to assemble and semi-calibrate it.

I later removed the standard belt and put on a linkbelt. It is much smoother and quieter now. And while assembling it, I lubed the threads and ran things through their whole range of motion, deburring as I went. Everything is now smooth and easy to work. No big.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I work on the assumption the kit was partly assembled for ease of shipping. Strip it right down to "bare kit" and reassemble, doing whatever is required to make it right as you put it (back) together. This way you stand a pretty good chance of ending up with a decent machine. Just take it out of the box and "finish" assembling it and you stand a much better chance of having a miserable piece of crap to work with.

Reply to
clare

Maybe due to weight limits and common carriers. Easier and lower cost to ship by truck.

Shipping by ocean carrier it could be a Mac Truck.

Mart> >

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

You didn't catch what I was saying. I figure they put it partway together so they don't have to wrap all the bolts and bearings and shafts and pulleys separately, risking having parts get lost..

Reply to
clare

I work on the assumption that they are going to use grease and lubricants that were state of the art... 40 years ago!

I have a few tools from HF, first thing I do with them is to strip down any gearing, clean it out and lube with good grease and oil. Air tools get connected up to make sure they work then stripped, vanes checked and bores polished, replace any grease and lube with good oil. I do the same thing with many other brands as well. Allows you to check things over and gets you to a starting point for tool maintenance.

Reply to
Steve W.

Right, and it only takes a few hours to do. I sanded the top and waxed it (J-wax), flexed everything that would move, lubed it, and put it together. 'Twas _much_ nicer than an as-bought assembly, and it took very little extra work. My Griz assemblies think they're Lagunas.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

And where on Earth would they find enough people capable of putting a box of discrete components together into a working machine? That little tidbit right there would limit sales immensely. The average Joe might be able to _use_ a machine, but 95% of them would be quite incapable of putting one together from individual parts.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

A few years ago I was looking online at home power generation, including growing plants to make oils from and then burning those oils in a Lister Diesel copy. I found a site that was importing these copies from India. On the site they warned against even turning the crankshaft once the engine arrives. They said the engine must be copmpletely disassembled, cleaned, sand removed from inside especially, deburred, and lubed before putting it all back together and starting for the first time. They had photos of the inside of some of the engines where the crankcase had been painted and the paint was holding big clumps of sand in place inside the crankcase. The importer sold gasket and bearing kits that it was wise to buy along with the new engine in order to replace the damaged ones that came with the engine. Especially the bearings because some of the engines were assembled with sand on the crank journals, which had become embedded in the bearings. Eric

Reply to
etpm

If you are going to actually USE the equipment you not only need to be able to assemble it, you need to be capable of dissassembling it the rest of the way first.

Reply to
clare

Read a lot of reviews on Pawermatic indicating the assembly leaves something to be desired. You CAN make a nice tool of them, but QC isn't what it could be, apparently.

Reply to
clare

It's a variable ratio drive , and because the assembly is only haphazard (or halfassed) the indicated speed is only a rough facsimile of the actual speed (one report had the drill running 460 when it indicated 400. That's not even "close")

Reply to
clare

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