Anyone has Shop Fox 17" Drill Press?

750 rpm isn't very slow! It would be tough to use a hole saw on steel in that guy. The chuck is probably useless with more than .010" runout, I have seen many import drill chucks with up to 1/32" runout. I take it this has a 3MT tapered spindle (once you remove the chuck, of course, using the drift pin they hopefully have) and there is little or no runout in the spindle itself? And that it runs very quietly and smoothly with little vibration in any speed? And has an integral work light? And a rack/pinion arrangement to raise/lower the table? If yes to all, then it's probably worth $270, a reasonable price to sell to a reputable dealer for a used 17" DP, certainly far too high to pay a private party. Basically for that price it should be just like new and in perfect condition.

See

GWE

Maybe Alex is actually talking about a new drill press? I can find this model new for $345 doing a Google search.

Chris

Yes it's actually a new drill press. The specs I posted before wrong. Here a correct and complete specs.

# Motor size: 1 H.P., 1720 RPM # Voltage: 110V/220V # Switch: Toggle Type # Overall height: 65-1/2" # Spindle travel: 3-1/4" # Spindle taper: MT#3 # Drill chuck: 5/8" # Number of speeds: 12 # Range of speeds: 140-3050 R.P.M. # Swing: 17" # Drilling capacity: 1" steel # Soft feed knobs for less hand fatigued # Table: Precision ground cast iron # Table size: 14" diameter

Is there anything inherently wrong with MT#3 taper?

Thanks, Alex

Christ>

Link to specs on this drill:

Christ>

Shop Fox makes pretty good import tools. The drill you mention it pretty common. Most every manufacturer has a Taiwan built drill press in their line up. I have a very similar Jet drill press sold by Jet, that was built in Taiwan. Chuck has less than .001" run out. My drill press was used commercially for 5 years, then for home shop use for the last 15 years! If the drill press fit my needs I would buy it. Greg

According to Alex :

[ ... ]

Nope -- it is an excellent way to mount drill chucks and other drilling tools (such as MT-shank drill bits).

But -- as already mentioned, 140 RPM is not really slow enough even for the maximum size drill bit which will fit in the supplied chuck

-- at least for use in steel. The MT-3 spindle can *directly* drive at least 1" drill bits -- so you would be seriously overspeed there.

I strongly suspect that it is yet another of the imports from China. (Mine came from Taiwan, as I got it back around 1976 or so.)

*All* of those which I have seen come with too big a drill chuck capacity for the slowest speed of which they are capable -- at least for work in steel.

In your first article in this thread, you mentioned "12-speed motor". I think that you will actually find that it is a single speed motor, and you will have to shift belts to different pulley steps to get the various speeds. I expect a four step pulley on the motor on the spindle, and on the idler in the middle. I have a 16-speed version, which has five steps on two of those at least. I think the motor and the idler. And my drill press is marginal in terms of lowest spindle speed, just like all of the other imports. I keep being tempted to yank the existing motor and toss in a three-phase motor and a VFD so I can tune up slower speeds at need.

Enjoy, DoN.